When coffee isn’t enough, Thimble, the rattkin who loves to bake, joins the crew, adding his sweet cinnamon rolls to the menu. When Viv needs help in the shop, Tandri, the succubus with the love of making art, is introduced and quickly fills the void in knowledge Viv is missing to make her shop a success. He doesn’t quite understand why anyone would want to drink “bean water” until he tries it himself. When the shop needs building, the stoic hob Calamity enters the story. Baldree uses each step of this goal to introduce the cast. The stakes are simple: open a coffee shop and sell coffee to a town that had never had coffee before so they can experience what Viv did when she first tried it. That is not what Viv does, though tempted she is, as most of the conflicts are solved the way many can, with communication and conflict resolution. Some readers would wish they could pick up the sword like Viv and solve their problems that way. Yes, the stakes are lower than slaying a world-threatening monster but protecting your business, your livelihood, and the new life you’ve made for yourself is a stake people can relate to. Still, Baldree doesn’t take the easy route to resolve Viv’s problems. Picking up the sword again would be easy to solve the novel’s few conflicts for both the main character to do and the author to write. To change who you are and to let the old you go can be difficult and Viv struggles with this as obstacles come her way against the coffee shop.
She’s done that and now wants to do something new that doesn’t involve swinging a sword, and that is to make coffee. For Viv, the adventure, or at least the typical fantasy slaying of monsters with a party of people for glory, fame, and wealth kind, is over. Trying to start a new life is not a novel concept for fantasy but is quite relatable.
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