Legends & Lattes: The Virtues of “High Fantasy, Low Stakes”
by Silver Webb
As an author, I’ve taken a lot of writing classes and been in many writing groups. I’m also an editor. And between those two functions, I’ve had it tattooed on my brain that you must have high stakes, plot tension, and a fast-moving pace. So I cast a wary eye on the Legends & Lattes byline: “High Fantasy. Low Stakes. Good Company.”
Low stakes, eh? Pretty much the opposite of what I’ve been taught fiction should be. But it turns out that “high fantasy, low stakes” is a category that includes books I’ve heard of, like Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, and some titles I’ve read and enjoyed, like Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.
My reading group chose Legends & Lattes because they wanted a book with a minimum of stress, a sort of escape from the upset that is so prevalent in the news these days. And I’m glad they did. Legends & Lattes is the story of an ex-mercenary orc named Vivian, who has saved up her coins to start a coffeehouse, in a town where nobody has ever heard of coffee. Viv buys an old livery building, and slowly begins meeting characters who help her build and put together the café, and those who become regular devotees of the coffee (a gnome-ish invention that Viv brings to town). The book reads quickly, but the plot points are true to life and may not seem like they’d be shimmering with antici…pation. I was expecting to be bored at scenes of Viv shopping for ceramic mugs for the café or waiting for the coffee machine to be delivered. The genius of Travis Baldree is the emotional ties he quickly creates between characters that make the reader want to know what happens next.
Tandri the succubus (who is not very succubus-y) shows up as a barista. Cal the carpenter helps build the place, and then sticks around for the coffee. A massive dire cat takes up residence as the café guardian.
And a rattkin named Thimble is soon baking cinnamon rolls that cause hobgoblins, elves, and humans alike to line up for sweet treats. I found myself absolutely entranced by the nervous, mostly silent rattkin, who worships coffee, and gets very excited about ingredients like cardamom and chocolate. I began cheering when they figured out how to make ice, so they could offer iced coffee. I smiled when I saw that Tandri the succubus and Vivian the orc were spending a lot of time together, and I was delighted at the possibility that it might bloom into something more. The regulars were just as fun to get to know: a gnome who plays chess against an invisible opponent, a lute-playing stone mason who overcomes his nerves to play for the café, a student researching ley lines who is highly suspicious of coffee. It wasn’t long before I was all in. Team Legends & Latte.
And that’s when Baldree blindsides you. There have, of course, been threats to the coffee shop, but they seem to be small ones, things that Viv can handle without bringing her sword out of retirement. But somewhere around Page 200, an act of destruction occurs that I found heartbreaking. All that Viv and her newfound family have built, which I felt part of, takes a massive blow. And this is the crux of the story. Viv can either revert to who she used to be (lethal with a sword) and seek vengeance, or she can find a way forward that stays true to the heart of the coffee shop and the friends she’s come to love.
The writing style is clean and simple. This is not a book with exquisite prose, poetic sensibilities, or words you have to look up in the dictionary. Here is an example:
“Viv started a fire, boiled water, ground some beans, and made a cup of coffee, which she drank too quickly. Then she made another. And another. As a result, she was nervier than ever and wished she’d written other instructions on the advertisement.”
Call it serviceable prose. In my opinion, it serves the story well. Given that Travis Baldree is an audiobook narrator who decided to branch out into writing during one National Novel Writing Month (the beloved, now defunct NaNoWriMo), he might not have characterized himself as a wordsmith either. But he had moxy and self-published it. In a surprise worthy of Vivian’s success at coffee-making, Baldree’s novel was an instant bestseller or Amazon, and Tor Publishing picked it up to re-publish it in 2022.
You so rarely hear about success stories like this with self-publishing that it does feel like the proverbial “warm hug” to hear of an author taking a chance and hitting the jackpot. Bookshops & Bonedust followed in 2024, and Brigands & Breadknives came out in 2025, all part of the Legends & Lattes series.
I recommend this book to any coffee-lover seeking a gentle escape into a fantastical world of whimsy and kindness.
