Review by C.J. Bunce

I tend not to be a fan of dramas in genre dress, or in this case fantasy dress.  The plot of Legends & Lattes: The Graphic Novel, now available for pre-order here at Amazon, couldn’t be simpler.  A woman named Viv is looking for a change after a big career, and gets the idea to start her own coffee shop.  She moves to a new town and takes all the steps required, hiring help, outsourcing some jobs, all toward arriving at a successful small business she names Legends & Lattes.  It’s not quite soap opera fare, it’s quaint, and it’s not even what you’d call a cozy mystery because there is no mystery.  It’s billed as high fantasy and low stakes, although for Viv, the stakes are a future where she’s not doing dangerous work anymore.  Based on a novel by Travis Baldree and adapted for the medium by Samuel Sattin with illustrations by Shanti Rittgers and Sarah Webb, this graphic novel storybook works somehow.  I think it may be because we’ve all watched a local business person, maybe even a local coffee shop owner, get off the ground and create a favorite haunt, your own Cheers bar.  But it’s also because the artwork looks like a mash-up of Shrek and The Hobbit.  Yes, genre makes everything better.  And our heroine Viv is a warrior Orc.

To say the story has low stakes underserves the heroine of the story and all the participation of a group of strangers who become friends.  That includes Tandri the succubus barista, a Hobbit named Cal with construction skills, and a mouse named Thimble who knows how to whip up the baked goods.  It even has a great big cat as a shop mascot.  Two-thirds of the book is a roadmap, a mini-Business 101, on taking a business forward, experimenting and innovating.  It’s quaint and smart.  That artwork also takes this fantasy nearly into kawaii territory.  It’s that cute and that fun.

Then even more stakes are piled on.  This isn’t the barber shop in Marvel’s Luke Cage or Do the Right Thing, but maybe it is just that.  Complete with the New York City prerequisite of mob activity, Viv is constantly threatened–if she doesn’t pay a local element for protection, one day she may end up finding her shop burnt to the ground.  Recall that axiom to the effect that if a writer includes a weapon in scene one, someone needs to fire it by story’s end?  Viv’s sword is hanging over her shop counter…

Villains aren’t who they seem to be as ghosts from Viv’s past surface.  How Viv works with her peers and the criminal element is a model for any kind of enterprise, even a board meeting, or running a local club.  Could the world use some examples of how to work together to accomplish a common goal?  You bet.  How Viv responds when everything goes wrong provides the stuff of a solid role model in any genre.  Unfortunately some brief profanity keeps this book out of kids’ territory.  It’s too bad, because it would make a great storybook for kids otherwise.

Adult coloring books are popular, so why not a cartoonish graphic novel fantasy storybook for young adults?

I met a pair of Orc women at a Renaissance Faire years ago and I think Viv looks and sounds exactly right.  The only thing missing is the accompanying recipes and cookbook.  Legends & Lattes: The Graphic Novel is a charming cozy fantasy, sure to find its audience, young or old.  And you’ll love the role of the cat.  Pre-order it now here at Amazon, published by Ten Speed Press.  It arrives in bookshops October 6, 2026.