S. L. Rowland

This is a sweet cozy fantasy in line with Legends and Lattes. A retired war hero works to open a bar in a “haunted” building using the cocktail recipes his late father gathered around the realm. There’s a supportive friend, heart-warming children, a cute cat, and lots of drink descriptions that probably sound delicious if you like cocktails.

This book has almost no conflict. It was comforting to read but never kept me awake past bedtime. Also, I’m unsure how to describe the book’s main relationship. To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say that I read the characters as good friends but questioned that at the end, and was left wondering if they are perhaps aro/ace, or if the intent was that their relationship grows after the book ends.… (meer)

This is not at all the same story as Legends and Lattes, except in all the best ways. An elven mage retires, moves to a new city (for warmth, mostly, to deal with the aftereffects of his magic), and sort of accidentally opens a tavern. He makes various friends, slowly reveals some of his secrets (we the readers know them, but he's worried about his friends' reactions to some of them), settles in to his new life - then there's a crisis that forces him to exert his magic again. And a happy ending, on many, many levels. If you like cocktails, there's an extra layer of fun - they're concocting some really interesting stuff (I can't drink - allergic to alcohol - so it's pretty abstract to me). I read this because I'd gotten S.L. Rowland mixed up with another author; now I have _another_ new author to binge on.… (meer)