Hello friends! I am back with another review post today and this book was my second book in the book club I’m in! My girls usually read DnD kind of high fantasy, something I rarely read and whenever I do, I usually choose shorter books from this genre. I feel like this book was such an easy and nice read because it wasn’t filled with a lot of info from the world, the side characters were well explained, and the story itself was so beautiful and heartwarming in general. It didn’t blow my mind but it was sure nice to read! 3.5⭐s for this beauty!
The story follows Viv, an orc who is done with all the blood and wars. She is done with killing and all she wants is to open a coffee shop in a city she likes and build her life from scratch. We only see a brief explanation of her past life when she takes the “stone” out of the queen and decides to leave without an explanation, leaving everything behind including her friends. She is determined to make her life different from what it is, she wants to be calm and find a way to do her passion without feeling bad about it.
And now we are in the cosmopolitan city of Thune. The descriptions of Thune are very nice, the smell of water and everything around her filling her with a sense of hope. Her “stone” had brought her here in order to build her life again and we get a good view of the city she decides to settle in throughout the book. As for someone who wants to make something that she could call “home” she is quite confused and not as prepared as I thought I would be. Like, she literally holds onto her stone and comes to this big city all alone without any decent plan to open a coffee shop (mind you that coffee is not something known in the city) frustrated me a little bit. The good thing though, she accepted that she needed help and decided to find some, which helps her to encounter amazing characters. It was very heartwarming; I loved Calamity, I loved how enthusiastic he was about something he could not understand, and I loved Tandri for being her muse in general. Regarding her initial confusion, she had found a family, a job, and a home to call “hers”. I saw one GoodReads comment saying that if Animal Crossing and DnD had a child, this would be it and I haven’t played any of those but for some reason, I am 100% sure that it would be exactly like this story.
The vibe of the book was very nice to me, though seeing the world latte or barista in a high fantasy setting made me laugh a lot, I got used to them very quickly and enjoyed it. I think the book’s main goal was to show how beautiful finding a family can be, that you do not always need to be bound by blood to love someone, or how great it is to build a home even though it is scary, hard, time-consuming and requires a lot of bravery. Every character surely had their own stories and though you do not get a proper background to them seeing their differences, and similarities warmed my heart. Viv finally found a family I thought. She finally has a place to call home.
It was overall a nice read and a calming story for me. Like I’ve said, my mind wasn’t blown away but I did enjoy it nevertheless. I suggest you read it too if you enjoy high fantasy and some calmness against the genre lol.
See you in my next post friends! 💖
Luster of Books 