I feel like, especially in the last couple of years, I say things like this a lot around here: if you look at this book cover you will immediately know most of what you might need to determine whether you should read this book, and your determination will very likely be one hundred percent correct. You should absolutely judge this book by its cover. That’s it. That’s the book. There’s a big barbarian-lookin’ orc chick (you’d be forgiven if you chose some other humanoid species; I thought she was an ogre at first) and something vaguely demonoid (a succubus, as it turns out) and they’re running a coffee shop. The only real question might be whether this is a full-blown fantasy world that happens to have coffee shops in it or if it’s some sort of urban fantasy thing, and, well, it’s full-blown fantasy, albeit in a world where coffee is mostly unknown.

You already know if you want to read this. If you want to read this, you and I can be friends. If you don’t want to read this you should read it anyway, because it’s fucking delightful, a word I have been using a lot to describe books lately. I asked BlueSky if I could get away with calling it “delicious,” and apparently I have decided I can since I’m doing it again here. The characters are wonderful– the being responsible for the pastries is a particularly inspired choice– and the plot is pleasantly low-stakes and predictable in a way that is somehow warm and comfortable and, dare I say it, cozy, as I know that “low-stakes and predictable” is not a phrase often associated with praise. You will make one wildly incorrect prediction and you will be happy to be wrong. The rest of it? Not so much. I have already preordered the sequel, due out in November.

That’s really it. This book got nominated for the Best Novel Hugo, and while I can’t name any of the other nominees off the top of my head I feel like it would be a perfectly acceptable choice and I’d be happy if it won. It will make you happy as well. You should read it.