A review by wardenred
A Second Story by J.A. Collignon

emotional hopeful slow-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

Being drunk by the sea with the love of my life is a glorious thing.

This book feels very much Legends & Lattes-inspired, in the sense that it’s a “what happens after the final quest of the campaign“ type of story, and unlike L&L, it doesn’t bother filing off any serial numbers whatsoever. It’s impossible to have any doubt that this is a D&D story. We’ve got tieflings and bags of holding here, people. I sure hope the author has double-checked the legalities of it all before hitting publish.

Anyway, the tabletopness of it all aside, this is really a great cozy read. Where a more typical fantasy novel will give you a full book of adventures and maybe 10-20 pages of the ever after that comes when the battles are won and the quests are solved, this one does the opposite. The adventurous premise is contained to the first 15% or so, and then the rest of the book deals with what happens after you put the dangers aside, settle down in a comfortable seaside town, and buy a bookshop. 

The romantic storyline is handled much the same way. We get a glimpse of Ari and Finnean falling for each other and deciding to be together, but it’s all super condensed, and then we get right into the honeymoon phase. Which, I must admit, didn’t 100% work for me because for a good chunk of the story I wasn’t sure why I should care about these characters and their happiness, other than as a general “happy people good, even when fictional“ thing. But the author gave me some damn good reasons to be interested and invested further down the line. As the story progressed, it turned into an amazing portrayal of that relationship phase where the honeymoon slowly gives way to the everyday, and you discover that no matter how infatuated you are with each other still, you’re actually different people with different needs, different paces of healing, and maybe even non-identical goals. I loved seeing all the cracks, anxieties, and compromises as the characters stumbled through it.

All in all, despite some pacing- and prose-related clunkiness, it’s a lovely read that I’m going to recommend to fellow cozy fantasy addicts for sure!
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