Brigands and Breadknives
By Travis Baldree
- Brigands and Breadknives
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Author: Travis Baldree
- Series: Book 2 of Legends and Lattes
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Publisher: Tor
- ISBN: 9781035035946
- Published: November 2025
- Pages: 352
- Format reviewed: Hardback
- Review date: 30/06/2026
- Language: English
If you read and review genre fiction long enough you start to be able to tell what the trends are in current fiction. Some of these trends will come and go, whilst others will stick around as their own subgenre. Is Romantasy a keeper? I am not convinced myself, but I do like its cousin the Cosy Fantasy novel, they often have romance, but that is not their raison d'etre. For me, Travis Baldree is the best exponent of this genre with their Legends & Lattes series, but in Brigands & Breadknives the author dips a toe back into the normal fantasy waters, but does it work?
We have met Viv the Orc and Fern the Ratling before, one in a coffee shop, the other in a bookstore. After a couple of decades Viv finally convinces Fern to open a new store next to her own in the big city. Perhaps this is the change that Fern has been yearning for, her life has felt so flat these past few years. However, even after all the work that Viv has put into making Fern comfortable, there is still something missing. Drink is not the answer, but after a late-night Fern finds herself waking up in a mysterious cart miles from home. Unbeknownst to her, she has just set out on an adventure that will change her life.
I adore the first two outings in the Legends series, both of them entering my list of books of the year. I read a lot of Fantasy, and it was nice to read something a little gentler with less at stake. On a personal level Viv and/or Fern had a lot on the line, but this wasn’t throwing rings into a volcano to stop the apocalypse levels of epic. The stories were smaller, the locations static. We learned more about the thoughts and feelings of fantasy characters, not as they rode into battle, but as they did other more normal things like opening a shop.
Brigands is a slight departure as it takes Fern on a quest, not dissimilar (but still smaller in scale) to your classic fantasy trope. She meets a 1000 year old Elf and accompanies her on returning a bounty, who just happens to be a redheaded Goblin that seems to be able to escape when she wants. On their path they meet talking cutlery, bards, and other bounty hunters looking to cash in on the Goblin. Like in any good Baldree novel this is as much about what Fern discovers about herself as it about what she discovers about the world.
The novel has a restless feel to it that mimics Fern’s uneasiness in life. What is she doing? I suggest that Baldree themselves feels the same way as their protagonist, the author of two highly successful Cosy Fantasy novels, are they forever pigeon-holed to write like this? These thoughts are even hinted about in the acknowledgements. There is more action and movement in Brigands than in the previous two novels combined.
Is this third outing in the series good? Yes, it is a fun novel, but it is not quite of the standard of the first two. By purposely moving back towards traditional Fantasy tropes, Brigands is more generic than the last books. The static nature of Lattes or Bookshops gave the books so much time to breathe, in Brigands we are constantly moving on meeting new people and places. The slow nature of the genre is lost. There is still heart here and a warmth that you do not get from most Fantasy, it is just more traditional than it once was.
Written on 30th June 2026 by Sam Tyler .
Topics and themes
Key Tropes
Tone & Pace
Themes
Setting
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