I read Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes not too long ago, and it is a goddamned joy. The premise is pure millennial fantasy. The whole idea behind it is that an orc gave up her day job (of killing things and going on adventure) to open a coffee shop.
Yes, you read right.
A coffee shop.
And readers, let me tell you something, it is everything you need right now. Wherever you are, whoever you are, I believe with everything in me that your Sunday is absolutely going to be improved by this book. You know you want to hear about an introvert ratkin invents familiar pastries, and the giant-ass cat who takes residence in the shop. You know you want the light frothing of romance, whch is very gay and very rooted in mutual respect between the characters.
My god, I want to hug the damn book. I might actually buy a physical copy so I can do so.
Equally lovely is C.S.E Cooney's exuberant Dark Breakers, which is really a collection of tales (with some fresh-new offerings) but that doesn't matter. You'll want to read everything in here. Though heavier on the angst than Legends & Lattes, Cooney's Dark Breakers remains a gorgeous joy, in part because you can tell how much the author loves her words, loves the worlds that she builds as a stage for her beautiful stories.
Like, Cooney has designed schools of art for this world. She has named its designers, taken time to create publishing houses for this place. It's intricate and it is jewelled and it is marvelous. And if this wasn't enough to sell you on this world, let's talk a little about the stories, about Cooney's work as an author.
At the core of all of them, there is love. Love, true and selfless. Love that isn't greedy, love that fizzes through the veins of her characters. Love as it should, true and feral and kind. Love that isn't restricted to romance alone, although Cooney writes romance with aching sweetness. There is love for art, love for family, love for your friends. Most importantly, love for the world and its transient beauty, its many delights, the little moments we so often miss and forget are transcendently perfect.
(I don't know why these newsletters have become book recommendation emails, and me howling into your inboxes about things to read, but welp, here we are.)
As for me, I'm inching on my second week of being a Twitter apostate and frankly, I don't know if I'll go back. The urge to doomscroll, to sift through the bad news and worse takes for particles of dopamine has since faded, and I'm finding myself reading more, doing more. (I have a Sherlock pastiche cooking, and a short story about a fox that is beginning to look like a novella, among other things) I miss the connection, the water cooler ease of being able to sidle up to conversations, but I don't miss it enough to return, I don't think. I may very well make occasional reappearances, depending on what my publishers say but who knows?
Anyway, I leave you with this delightful postmortem (it's about how an artist designed a horror one-shot using the Scooby-Doo characters, and I Love It So Much) and a photo of Doodle.
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