What exactly is cosy fantasy? It’s a subgenre of fantasy which became popular around 2020. With everything that was going on then, it’s no surprise readers were looking for comforting, escapist books. Hence the rise of cosy fantasy. While set in mystical worlds inhabited by your usual suspects: orcs and elves and sorcerers, these stories aren’t about epic, world-saving quests. Instead, these stories are character-led, usually focusing on how a character relates to the world and the people around them. Often readers will meet characters in the process of starting a small business in the fantasy world and forming new relationships along the way. In a nutshell, cosy fantasy is high fantasy with low stakes, resulting in a creative, compelling story that also manages to be heartfelt and incorporate themes of found family and community building.
Cosy fantasies often feature characters starting a new chapter in their lives. Such is the case with Viv, the orc adventurer in Legends and Lattes. After decades of adventuring, which included capturing thieves and fighting monsters, the kinds of feat readers could expect from a high fantasy novel, Viv is finally ready to hang up her sword. She has a new dream in mind: opening the first coffee shop in the city of Thune. Even though no one there knows what coffee actually is.
Viv has her work cut out for her but she isn’t doing it alone, she is joined by Tandri the succubus, Cal the hob and Thimble the rattkin, who is a surprisingly fine baker. Each character brings their unique talents to support Viv and her coffee shop, and it’s a delight to see Viv form a new crew, one with a very different skill set to her former adventuring crew. Yet old rivals and new stand in the way of success. And Thune’s shady underbelly could make it all too easy for Viv to take up the blade once more.
This comfort read is wholesome and heartfelt, best enjoyed curled on a comfy reading chair with a hot drink of your choice. It’s still a page-turner, not because of world-ending peril, but because readers become utterly invested in seeing Viv reach her dream.
And our second story features less baked goods and more bureaucracy but 
it’s just as compelling. The House in the Cerulean Sea introduces readers to Linus Baker, a forty-year-old case worker leading a quiet if somewhat lonely life. He has a tiny house with a devious cat and his beloved records for company. He works at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he’s spent many years monitoring their orphanages. While he is beleaguered by incompetent, power-hungry managers, the fact is that Linus is good at his job and uniquely kind for his profession. He takes diligent care in making sure magical children are treated fairly.
Linus expects this safe tedium to continue indefinitely. That is until he is summoned by Extremely Upper Management and given a highly classified assignment. He must travel to a remote orphanage on Marsyas Island, where six dangerous children reside, including the Antichrist. Linus is given the impossible task of deciding if these powerful magical children could herald the end of days. He will be assessing the children and their guardian, the charming Arthur Parnassus, and reporting back to Extremely Upper Management. Linus is nothing if not professional, but as he grows closer to Arthur and the children, can he remain impartial? And does he want to, when he might just be the only person who can save this strange family?
In a cast of quirky, charming characters, including a were-Pomeranian and an unidentifiable green blob, Linus is the star of the show. Awkward and restrained, his narrative is nonetheless interspersed with dry wit and empathy.
