5x Cosy fantasy

Omdat de meeste boeken in dit genre vooralsnog Engelstalig zijn, zonder vertaling, is deze blog in het Engels geschreven; zo kunnen er zoveel mogelijk mensen meelezen.

Ah, Autumn! In the Netherlands, even in Spring there’s always a bit of Fall lurking around the corner, so why not make the best of it?

Time to curl up on the couch under a blanket, with a cup of your favourite tea or a pumpkin spice latte. With the rain beating down on the windows outside and the candles lit inside, you’re ready to drift off into a story, printed on bound paper pages. A book! And what’s a better book for shelter than a cosy fantasy novel?

This genre has been booming, and it’s easy to see why: it’s a warm, inviting place in the form of a book. If you love otherworldly surroundings, magic, friendship, and a found family, meandering stories without too much suspense, where all adventures have a happy ending, this might be for you. A criticism of this genre is that people sometimes find it lacking gravitas, but for fans, that might just be its biggest plus…

The Spellshop – Sarah Beth Durst

Creating Community

During the fall of the Empire, librarian Kiela and her sentient plant assistant Caz flee the city to safety. Together with a few crates of their favourite magical books they managed to save, they end up on the island Kiela grew up on. They soon find out that the island had more than its fair share of misfortune and decide to open up an illegal spellshop to help its inhabitants. But at what cost… The story is a warm reminder to help others, to take care of your surroundings and heal the earth and that sometimes you should choose to do what is right, not what is easy (or in Kiela and Caz’ case, legal…) 

Legends and Lattes – Travis Baldree

Turning a new leaf

A skilled swordwoman decides to end a career in adventuring, to open up a cafe in a new-to-her city. The catch? No one there knows what coffee is. It might take some hard work and time but with the friends she meets along the way she manages to not only succeed in her new adventure but make a home with people she loves for the first time in her life. Caution: this book may cause a strong desire for cinnamon buns and chocolate croissants. And of course… coffee. 

The teller of small fortunes – Julie Leong

Found Family

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller who only tells small fortunes, because she knows from experience that telling big fortunes can have negative consequences… But then she meets a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary on the road who rope her in the search for a lost child. Their merry band is complete after an apprentice baker and a cat join them on their travels. This meandering story of intertwined fates and (found) family touches on real life problems of prejudice, feeling like you don’t belong and finding your place in the world, but it also shows you that happiness can be found in unexpected ways.

The very secret society of irregular witches – Sangu Mandanna

Warm & Quirky

Mika Moon never stays anywhere for long, it’s better that way, according to the woman who raised her. That way your secret (being a witch) stays safe. But is it really? If you never really settle down and build a life somewhere and suddenly a wonderful, strange, quirky and kind group of people offer you something different, a chance to really call a place home, would you take it? This sweet and warm story about found family and belonging will perhaps encourage you to choose something different than is expected of you, because it is what will make you happy. 

Monk and robot – Becky Chambers

Hopeful

Have you ever had the feeling that you (still) don’t know what you want in life, but like you really should know by now? Sibling Dex feels the same and decides to turn their life around and become a traveling teamonk, but the feeling keeps cropping up.. Until an unexpected encounter with robot Splendid Speckled Mosscap makes them think about what it actually means to be human, and that perhaps that lack of purpose is part of it. Sometimes you have books that imagine a world so lovely you just want to live in it. This is such a book. The story is a lovely example of solarpunk, a genre where a future is imagined in which we as humans live in balance with nature, where wellbeing is more important than productivity and inclusivity in all forms is celebrated.