Two decades before she opens a coffee shop, the orc mercenary Viv is on the trail of a bounty when an injury forces her off the road and into the sleepy seaside town of Murk. Grounded and restless, she wanders into Thistleburr, a failing bookshop run by a sharp-tongued ratkin named Fern, and finds herself pulled into a life she never expected to want.
Over one slow, healing summer, Viv trades her sword for dust rags and reading recommendations, befriends a warm-hearted baker named Maylee, and slowly helps breathe life back into the little shop. But the town is not as quiet as it seems, and a lingering menace tied to necromancy threatens the fragile peace Viv has begun to build.
A prequel to the runaway hit Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree's Bookshops & Bonedust is low-stakes, high-comfort "cozy fantasy" — warm, funny, and full of found family, first crushes, and the quiet conviction that the right book can change a life. It stands on its own while deepening the story of how a battle-worn adventurer learned to imagine a different future.
