Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Legends & Lattes

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Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

641 reviews

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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angorarabbit's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Ethnicity, some gender, and orientation diversity. Most of the violence is in the prologue and the short story that follows the main story in my edition of the book, These can be skipped with little lost to the main story. There is a little kissing but no spicy stuff.

TLDR: The last chapter is the chef’s kiss.

Context: This was my 3rd book choice for the Kindle Series Pioneer Spring 2024 challenge.It made up for Tress of the Emerald Sea.

So let’s compare Legends and Lattes (Legends) to Tress of the Emerald Sea (Tress) shall we?

The basic plot is similar. A woman goes on a quest. She does not know how she will achieve her goals but she sets off anyway. On the way others join her because she is a good person. With the help of others the woman achieves her goal after vanquishing an opponent.

So Tress is a 2 star and L & L a 4 star to me.

Two things: writing style and characterisation.

Legends has no narrator asides telling you that Viv is remarkable, or humble, or so like other girls that no other girl is like her. You taste the Midnight Crescents because Tandri puts it in her mouth. Tress tells you that Charle eats a pie. Tress has to tell you that sexism has no place in business, Legends just shows men and women working. Legends trusts the reader.

With apologies to Fort, Tress’ characters are backdrops to Tress. They have few initiatives of their own, even the narrator. Charlie in particular felt like a hot mess of tropes to me. On the other hand Legend’s characters seem to have lives of their own. I can imagine Thimble going back home after a baking day and sipping a cold drink pleased at everyone’s reactions to his newest creation. Calamity sitting back with a warm soup and an ice pack on aching muscles reflecting on a job well done.

Also I love the idea of a studious non-violent orc. I am looking forward to the further adventures of Viv, Cal, Tandri, and Thimble.

Also also the elf deserved what he got, elves spend way to much silver on hair care products.

Lastly I am rethinking my aversion to Amazon’s KPD. Thank you to tor.com and all the booksellers out there for making this available to non-Kindle-Unlimited readers.

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tea_coffee_sam's review against another edition

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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cursed10fold's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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zydecovivo's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I first saw this book on StoryGraph and then started seeing it everywhere, convincing me it must be overhyped. It seemed to me like a DM (or wanna-be-DM) just wrote out their D&D campaign and managed to get it published. Nevertheless, I put my name on the waitlist at my local library. Over a month later (!!!), I finally got the chance to borrow it. I started it after a long workday, just trying to read a few pages to keep my reading streak alive. I could not have been more wrong about the premise.

Don’t get me wrong, it is probably (most definitely) D&D fan fiction. However, the story itself is probably the best Coffee Shop AU I’ve read so far. I was quickly charmed by Viv’s no-nonsense but fair treatment of total strangers, nose-to-the-grindstone attitude, and willingness to seek a life change on her own terms. She has had a rough life, probably the result of someone’s D&D campaigns. But after one final quest, with the help of a so-called “lucky charm,” she goes in search of her heart’s desire: opening a coffee shop in a town that had never heard of coffee. She gets more than she bargained for, mostly in the form of a new group of friends who truly support her, as well as a love interest (who I hope is asexual, but right now, unconfirmed). Viv’s old campaigning party even comes back to help, showing that she is still loved for more than her strength and sword skills. If it’s not obvious, I love Viv, her new friends, and the way they carve out their new community and niches in the coffee shop. There is some drama (gotta have a plot after all), but it only serves to teach Viv that she is (and always was) enough for her friends. It is a beautiful story about found family, friendship, and finding a new place in the world, things we all seek in our own lives.

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vivandtan's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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glund_01's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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teabrewer's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It's nor nescessarily my usual kind of book (I tend to prefer the more emotional kind) but it is a impecable execution of the kind of book it is. What I loved the most was the cozy vibes, like the pages were made of cinnamon rolls. What I thought could have been better:

This book is not a romance, I know, and I absolutely agree it shouldn't be one. Even then, I think the romantic side o Viv and Tandri's relationship was given too little attention. In my opinion, they either should have stayed ambiguos friends or their romance should have occupied a little more of the story's time.
I didn't like that Tandri became useless during the fire scene while Viv apparently became Superman

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dymonlikestoread's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Book Review
Legends and Lattes
Author: Travis Baldree
Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis: After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv, an Orc, is hanging up her sword for the last time. Viv hopes for a fresh start by creating Thune's first-ever coffee shop. To make her dreams a reality, she will have to make new friends along the way.
This book is such a breath of fresh air. It is incredibly cozy, and the characters are each so loveable. Viv has a simple dream of starting a coffee shop and, for the first time, settling down to start a permanent home. We get to read the progress of Viv's journey step by step. While the beginning was slow, it picked up after the shop was in full swing. The book was funny and heartwarming. Thimble and Pendry were my favorite characters. If you enjoy Slice of Life Anime or looking for a comforting book. I would highly recommend this book.

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polemos's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

My first "cozy" fantasy book. Silly and light, with the exception of the events at the climax which were serious for some reason. The story flowed well enough. The writing was mediocre throughout, with numerous, but not too numerous, low points involving the overuse of adverbs, lack of subtext, and similar sins. All in all, not my genre and, I would hope, not a good example of the cozy genre.

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