LEGENDS & LATTES by Travis Baldree

2023 Nebula Award Nominee Reviews Part 5/6

Reviewed by: Abe Ziesing

After deciding to read all of this year's Nebula Award nominees, and upon examining the book covers of each, I immediately predicted that LEGENDS & LATTES was going to be my least favorite. It turns out that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Huh, who would've thought?

Viv is an enormous sword-wielding orc that's grown weary of fighting, bounty hunting and adventuring for treasure. She's ready to put an end to her rough and rugged lifestyle, retire the sword, and of all things, open a coffee shop! She knows that this transition will be extremely difficult; so difficult in fact that she's willing to use some arcane magic with few clues as to how it actually works, in order to increase her odds of success. Will one last ill-advised decision be the downfall of her dreams?

Low stakes fantasy cozy reads are certainly not my reading material of choice so I went into this with the attitude of someone with a painful chore on their to-do list. That attitude melted away by the time I'd finished the first page. Baldree's book is so incredibly clever, so whimsically witty, and so flawlessly executed that I was helpless against its charm. I hereby challenge even the staunchest of cozy read haters to finish it without wiping away a happy tear.