49 pages • 1 hour read
Bookshops & Bonedust
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Background
Series Context: The Legends & Lattes Series
In 2022, Travis Baldree self-published his first novel, Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes. As an audiobook narrator and game developer, Baldree was familiar with the publishing industry, but his career took a dramatic turn upon his independent publishing of Legends & Lattes. The novel went viral on social media, propelling Baldree into the spotlight.
The inspiration for Legends & Lattes came from a friendly challenge with a fellow writer. After trying unsuccessfully several times to finish a novel during November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Baldree and a friend challenged each other to complete a novel during the 2021 challenge. When Baldree self-published Legends & Lattes in 2022, it became a sensation thanks to social media, particularly BookTok, a reader community on TikTok, and was republished by Tor Books later that same year. Audiences responded to Baldree’s take on the cozy fantasy genre.
In 2023, Baldree followed Legends & Lattes with the second book in the series, Bookshops & Bonedust. Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel to Legends & Lattes. It tells the story of a young Viv just embarking on her career as a mercenary, whereas Legends & Lattes is about the end of Viv’s mercenary career. Both books are about new beginnings and different paths, and deal with themes of belonging, identity, and self-discovery.
Genre Context: Cozy Fantasy
When the Legends & Lattes series hit mainstream reading audiences in 2022, it was immediately branded as a “cozy fantasy” series. Over the past few decades, the fantasy genre has become increasingly popular, and with that popularity, the genre has expanded and intersected with other popular literature genres like mystery, horror, and romance. One subgenre that has developed as a result is known as “cozy fantasy.”
Named in reference to the cozy mystery genre, cozy fantasy falls within the fantasy genre. Like the fantasy genre, it shares conventions such as magical elements, fantastical creatures, and a focus on world-building. These elements intersect with those “cozy” aspects typical of the cozy mystery genre, which focuses on community, character-building, and relationships. The result is a fantasy novel in which the characters aren’t involved in epic battles or graphic violence, but spend their time as the characters in Bookshops & Bonedust do: reading, going sailing or shopping, cooking, cleaning, and eating together.
Cozy fantasy books are often referred to as “low stakes,” as reflected in the subtitle of Baldree’s first book. Cozy fantasy novels are light-hearted and often written in a humorous tone. In addition, the thematic concerns of the cozy fantasy genre tend to be thoughtful and introspective, focusing, as Bookshops & Bonedust does, on character-centered themes like building relationships and learning about oneself.
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