3.5 stars
Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has never exactly been a big reader) to buy a book, which she is surprised that she can barely put down.
Soon a beautiful friendship is born. Viv spends most of her days hanging out in Fern the Ratkin’s rather run-down store, trying to help her come up with ways to make the place a bit less dilapidated and more inviting to customers. Fern keeps giving Viv new books, and after having eagerly completed a few, Viv stops trying to pretend that reading isn’t for her. There are some added complications involving a fierce gnome fishing for an invitation to Rackham, Viv’s employer; a suspicious city guard captain, and the discovery of the corpse of the sinister fellow who Viv got into a very public fight with after he was rude to Fern’s pet.
Viv also befriends the local bakery owner, a cheerful dwarf who keeps bribing Viv with delicious baked goods. They develop the chastest of romances, which basically amounts to them talking walks, feeding the fish and holding hands occasionally. Both know that Viv isn’t going to be staying in Murk for very long, so their flirtation has a definite end date.
While Viv is worried that her time in Murk is going to be too uneventful and boring, some strange artefacts left behind by the dead fellow on the beach, turn out to be rather exciting and may have links to the necromancer that Viv’s mercenary band were hunting.
Full review on my blog.
