Sometimes you just want to relax with a lovely story about an orc ex-adventurer retiring and deciding to start up a coffee shop. And that’s exactly what I got with this.

I absolutely love stories about people building businesses or just existing in a fantasy world. In this one Viv, an orc adventurer, decides that she’s done with the life and retires to open a coffee shop. How can you not love this as a premise?

Viv uses her savings to buy property and materials and over the course of the book gathers a group of people to help her make her dreams a reality. She builds everything up, one piece at a time and it’s a lot of fun to watch and very satisfying.

But there’s a deeper story beneath it, about her truly giving up her old life. Every time a threat to her new life arises, be it from previous enemies or the local protection racket, there’s a temptation to pick up her sword and deal with it the way she used to. It’s a really nice display of whether she takes the possibly easier route that she has experience with or whether she’s fully committed to her new, more peaceful lifestyle. This is a message that I really love, that change takes commitment and effort but that if it’s something you really want to do then it’s worth it.

The characters are well written and it’s nice getting to know them. There’s no one that stands out as amazingly different to anything you’ve seen before but there doesn’t need to be. There’s also a nice, subtle slow burn romance, which is the best kind. All of this comes together to make a delightful read and I heartily recommend it to anyone who just wants to sink into a fantasy world for a few hours.

If you’d like to read more Sapphic Fantasy, try The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska.