The Bookshop and the Barbarian

The Bookshop and the Barbarian (2023) Morgan Stang

This was a delight.

I kept stopping and reading bits aloud to Michael.

“Well, perhaps you know them better as adventurers? Swords-for-hire? Mercenaries? Sellswords? You see, a murder-hobo is a man or woman who travels all about the land. They have no home. Their primary source of income is doing odd jobs for the people they come across. Now these jobs could be anything, and any number of solutions could be used to address these jobs, but to a murder-hobo, murdering is usually the go-to strategy. They carry large swords and are excellent fighters. So that’s why people call them murder-hobos.”

I mean, there was even a sly reference to Legends and Lattes.

There’s this town several towns over, where these two women recently started up a business selling coffee. It’s apparently a huge success, and everyone is raving about it. I forget the name of it. Myths and Mugs? Champions and Cappuccinos?”

And it regularly goes through the fourth wall.

It’s not good to do one thing for too long, you know. All right, then. Are you all finished going about and seeing how boring the real world without a book is? Continue reading, then.

Rating: 9/10

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