TL;DR Review: A dimension-hopping exploration of friendship, love, and the magic of a well-mixed cocktail.
Synopsis:
Low-stakes magic, crafting cocktails, and discovering the power of who we truly are.
Emma grew up as a Hunter of the Cursed—those charged with eradicating monsters and magic from the Kingdom. She’s revered as one of the King’s most skilled hunters. At least she was—until she discovered she possessed magic herself.
Before anyone else can discover her secret, Emma abandons her post and flees to the far edge of the Kingdom, where she hopes she can settle down and live a quiet life as a bartender, out of the Hunters’ watchful eye.
Fate, however, won’t allow us to run away from who we are so easily.
When Emma is confronted by an exiled fairy and a man who claims to be a scientist (though Emma is convinced he’s a sorcerer), she must evaluate what she believes and the confines of who she’s been allowed to be.
Pulled on a journey that takes her further than she’d ever imagined possible, Emma is led on an adventure to discover where her fate lies and must confront her own biases, hopefully learning a drink recipe or two along the way.
A low-stakes cozy fantasy about cocktails, magic, portals, and finding where we truly belong.
If you enjoyed the themes of leaving it all behind in books like Legends & Lattes, and the fun and low-stakes magic in The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, then this is the book for you.
Full Review:
The Bartender Between Worlds strikes an interesting balance between a cozy slice-of-life story and a darker fantasy adventure.
In it, we follow Emma, a witchhunter who discovers that she is cursed with the same magic she has spent her whole life trying to eradicate from her world. On the run from her order, she falls into the company of a mad scientist and his fairy companion.
At first, Emma believes they’re absolutely nuts, but when her own magical ability opens the portal from her world to another, she is swept along on an adventure hopping from one reality to another—an adventure that will lead her to discovering the truth about her magic and herself.
I found this book very easy to read, with immensely likable characters that were instantly easy to root for. There’s not a whole lot of complexity—what you see is largely what you get—but none was necessary to make this low-stakes adventure engaging.
Emma’s power was fascinating: she could sense alcohol and feel its desire to BE something else. Whether turning spoiled wine good, adjusting the flavors of an ale, or knowing exactly what cocktail ingredients to mix for the perfect drink, her magic works with all forms of alcohol (and even other liquids like water). It was definitely one of the most original magic types I’ve encountered, and perfect for this cozy story.
The dimension-hopping feels random at first, but it all leads Emma (and her companions) down the emotional journeys they’re meant to go on, and brings them to the right place at the right time with all the right realizations to wrap the story up neatly.
All in all, a very easy-reading, enjoyable cozy-yet-adventurous tale.
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