Quick-take: Cozy fantasy coffee shop.

Dan's Review

Two things I really enjoy are fantasy novels and coffee. When I stumbled upon this book that combined both, I had to give it a try.

Viv is a giant orc that is tired of fighting. She finishes her last adventure and retires to open a shop in Thune, a bustling river town. She is going to introduce the locals to a beverage she fell in love with during her travels: Coffee.

The story walks us through the startup process... acquiring the location, renovating it, acquiring supplies, hiring an assistant, and finally opening day. Viv is surprisingly underprepared. She lucked out massively by all her early hires. Her new assistant has a knack for business strategy and marketing. Her carpenter is skilled at renovations. Her baker is a genius. The fact she can just hand over the coin purse to any of them and not worry about theft is big.

I'll give Viv credit for Cal, because she watched from afar and could see that Cal had skill and pride in his work. The other hires were dumb luck. This probably just shows how early days of a business is make or break with hiring.

It's a short book, so I won't go into any more details. You can probably guess where the story goes.

Score: 5/5. The story is not particularly strong. However, this book gets top marks anyway because it is exactly as advertised. A decently executed breezy story of a coffee shop in the middle of a fantasy world.