Bookshops & Bonedust

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree was one of only two or three books I rated five stars last year, so I'm not sure why it took so long for the prequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, to reach the top of my listening schedule.

It's read by Baldree himself again, which is excellent, since he's a professional audiobook narrator and does a fantastic job with his own work.

This instalment tells the story of a young Viv (the orc who open the coffee shop as a retirement plan in the first book) getting injured on her first mercenary campaign and being forced to recuperate in a sleepy seaside town where there's nothing to do...

She befriends the owner of the bakery and the owner of the bookshop and forms a delightful found family, while discovering she likes reading and helping renovate the bookshop.

It made a brilliant contrast to have a young Viv, horribly frustrated by inactivity and desperate to get back to fighting, compared with the much older Viv of the other book, who is desperate to hang up her sword and find some boredom.

All the detail about running shops and all the amazing descriptions of the bakery food were very reminiscent of the previous book and I loved spending time with the characters - especially the animated skeleton homunculus, Satchel.

The book is basically a love letter to reading, which is always a good thing. And there was an amusing nod to the challenges of being a writer when Viv and Fern went to see a local author and were told, "You're in luck - she's not writing, so she's in a good mood today!"

It's all just so damn cosy - until it's not - as, very much like in the previous book, there's a massive ramp up to a very dramatic conclusion, which seems much more so in contrast to all the slow, lovely mundanity of what comes before.

I would have recommended that people read this one first (despite it being published second as a prequel) but there's an entirely unnecessary epilogue that would ruin certain things about Legends & Lattes, which is a shame.

Still - a fantastic audiobook that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Wytchwood

It's taken me a couple of weeks to get through Wytchwood, but I've been playing it quite a lot because it's fun!

You play an old witch (with an upside-down cauldron on her head), who is sent out into the world to collect the souls of twelve nefarious creatures, so a shifty goat will awaken a sleeping maiden, who is lying in a shrine next to your house...

I love a game with a clear to-do list and this is one of the best organised to-do lists in a game I've ever seen. Everything is categorised by chapter, with each task clearly laid out in turn and simple instructions about where to go.

There are multiple locations in the game, with get revealed over time, and a clever way of teleporting between them (once you figure out how useful the Hearthseeds are...). There's quite a bit of running around, since you'll be told you need to craft a particular item, which needs components made up of individual ingredients you won't necessarily have in your inventory. So you'll have to go back to a different location to collect them before you can progress.

That got a bit frustrating in places, when I just wanted to get on with the plot, but it was basically the whole mechanic of the game, so I decided I couldn't really complain. Plus, if you sweep round a whole area collecting everything that's available there in whatever amounts you can each time, you'll generally have what you need when you need it. The game's map also has a useful feature that highlights where you need to go if you can't remember where certain things are.

I worked out the narrative twist very early on, but that didn't matter because all the quests were fun and interesting and I enjoyed the basic gameplay. My only caveat would be that it's not for the squeamish - a lot of the spell/item ingredients you need require you to hunt and dismember insects, reptiles, birds, animate vegetables, baby snowmen, and... ummm... bunnies...

So, yeah - it initially looks quite cutesy but all the adorable critters will explode when they run into your traps...

Oh, and you have to steal a lot of stuff from a lot of people...

So perhaps not a game for those with a strong moral compass or a passion for animal rights...

I enjoyed it, though, so I'm not sure what that says about me!