Review: Twig's Traveling Tomes

Twig's Traveling Tomes by Gryffin Murphy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one reads as if it was consciously crafted to appeal to the Platonic ideal of the cozy fiction fan, and indeed it is being published because it drew the attention of the "tastemaker" who discovered Travis Baldree. My cozy fantasy bingo card filled up quickly: tea, love of books, small business, gender and relationship diversity in all the usual ways (except that nobody is clearly trans), broadly D&D-style setting, quirky introvert protagonist being pushed out of her comfort zone by events, supportive love interest, cute familiar (though not until halfway through).

For me, contrarian that I am, this was almost a downside. It's not all the way to "made from box mix," but it does fall into my category of "if you like this sort of thing, this is definitely one." I personally prefer fresher ideas rather than variations on an established theme, but I know I'm in a minority there, and lots of people will love this unreservedly.

The worldbuilding, while not startlingly original, has had a bit more work than is often the case with cozy. Four kingdoms themed around the traditional four elements, elemental and natural magic, approximately the usual D&D species, though elves have brightly coloured skin and gnomes brightly coloured hair.

The editing is also a bit above average; there are several of the usual issues (occasional missing past perfect tense, "may" in past tense narration instead of "might," dialog sometimes punctuated incorrectly), but fewer examples than I usually see. The biggest problem is the vocabulary. The author uses a number of words that don't have quite the right connotation (the most obvious example being "amorously" for "lovingly" when it isn't sexual love), and a couple that sound similar to the word she means but are a different word, like "hurdling" for "hurtling" and "clamored" for "clambered". Both of those are relatively common confusions, and there may yet be more editing before publication; I had a pre-publication version via Netgalley for review.

The romance begins with instant attraction, then there's a long will-they-won't-they period (about three-quarters of the book) with minimal justification given. There's some very steamy kissing and some innuendo, but nothing more than that on screen.

There's nothing so badly wrong with it that I feel justified in dropping it to three stars, but I'm giving it four a bit grudgingly. Put that down to my curmudgeonly nature and dislike of the expected choice.

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