BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES is about a talking rat. There are probably three types of people who will read this book --- those who are familiar with the previous installments of the Legends & Lattes series, in which said talking rat appears as a character; those who are actively looking for books about talking rats; and those who are voracious readers and are not too picky about what they read. If you are not in any of those categories and are curious about the book, I will point out that there is also a talking breadknife named Breadlee in it.

I mention this because, well, it is possible to read “talking rat” and imagine something like the talking raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy. This is a cozy fantasy that is intentionally and performatively twee. When my kids were little, they read an incredibly twee series of books about fairies, and I was told by their teachers not to be judgmental. At least they were reading something, and that was all to the good. Now they are immersed in Fourth Wing, which is many things but thankfully not twee. Travis Baldree’s series is basically twee fantasy that is more adult (well, not adult in that way; there’s not so much as a chaste kiss, but you get the idea).

"Baldree takes a bold step here in introducing his homebody character to her wider world. It’s an interesting enough place that even skeptical readers will want to give BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES a fair chance."

Still, there is value in BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES, and it comes in the author’s exploration of the Ulysses theme. I read two books back-to-back last year that were based, more or less, on this theme. It’s all well and good to sit around the old homestead and drink an amphorae of wine, order around the household staff, and partake in the delights of home and hearth. Sometimes you just have to unfurl the sails, tread the wine-dark sea, and trust in the gods to see you off and safely home again. This is what sends Fern the talking rat (along with anxiety and alcohol) to hide in the back of an adventurer’s wagon, leaving her charming, quaint, cozy bookstore for the wandering life of an assistant bounty hunter.

The incorporation of the Ulysses theme here isn’t that exceptional; it’s a common theme that's as old as literature itself. What is notable is that Baldree is using it as a meta-commentary on the concept of the cozy fantasy series itself, which is that there are interesting things going on in the fantasy worlds that aren’t related to chasing kobolds down the twisty passages of dark, dank dungeons. The problem with this concept is that you still have to tell a story.

BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES spends a lot of time noodling over the reasons why Fern decides to leave her twee little bookstore next to her friend’s twee little coffeehouse. But at bottom, it has to be because she’s bored of it and wants a little adventure for herself. At the meta-level, one then can surmise that Baldree also might be bored of his creation. (In the Acknowledgements section, he states that he did not “want to write the same book over and over,” which is a brave thing for the author of a cozy fantasy series to say --- and all power to him for admitting that.)

Whether or not the book succeeds in giving its talking-rat heroine the adventure she craves is an open question for readers. Baldree does a good job balancing the twee elements of the story with some actual adventuring involving a mysterious goblin prisoner and a laconic elven bounty hunter. It almost reads like a fantasy version of Midnight Run, though it isn’t quite that. Still, Baldree takes a bold step here in introducing his homebody character to her wider world. It’s an interesting enough place that even skeptical readers will want to give BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES a fair chance.