Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I am always leery of stories of the “before times” that are published after the original story was published. It’s not an easy thing to pull off, let alone doing it well. I went into this reading with trepidation, and might have skipped it had a local book group not selected it.

I enjoyed the story well enough. Cozy fantasy stories are a good thing. Having something that isn’t saving the world is a nice change. This book was clearly about saving a book store. It wasn’t about Viv and her healing process. It contained a stack of missed opportunities to make the attachment to various characters deeper and better than what was presented.

There were some neat bits in here. I did really enjoy Satchel, even if it was shaky world building to have him switch sides. He is roughly equivalent to Bob the skull from the Dresden files, albeit better behaved. I liked the book with magical spaces inside the pages, but again, shaky world/magic system building.

Don’t look deep into this one. Just read it and roll with it. If you really want a little story about saving a bookshop, this is the book for you.



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