Review: Even a Hero Needs a Vacation Every Now and Then by August (Tipsy Pelican Tavern #1)

Synopsis

Archibold Stormblood, Visseria’s most powerful hero, is on a much-needed vacation. After spending two hundred years tirelessly training, fighting, and battling evil, he figures he’s earned a break, which is why he’s put his legendary past behind him, now living under the assumed identity of a polite, mortal nineteen-year-old tavern keeper.

All he would like is to brew tasty spell-cold ales and have a few laughs with his regulars at the Tipsy Pelican Tavern.

Trouble is the last thing he wants in his life. Especially any trouble in the form of the White Church, corrupt officials, crime syndicates, or whatever his growing number of iron-willed barmaids manage to conjure up.

But peace and quiet never last long for a hero. And if danger arises, how will he defend himself and his beloved tavern now that his greatest immortal powers have been sealed away?

Review

I’m finding that I’m reading a lot of books I’d class as palate cleansers this year. Perhaps cosy fantasy is becoming my go to genre after the onslaught of epic fantasies and sci fi stories out there? In any case, step forward the Tipsy Pelican Tavern series to strike up a happy medium between cosy and epic, and deliver a truly satisfying read.

Hard one to summarise, this. Think of Tipsy Pelican Tavern like a happy bridge between manga and prose, with some author illustrations thrown in for good measure (disclaimer: I read the ebook version). Arch is our main character here and is a carefree tavern keeper, focused on keeping his meagre amount of customers topped up with his vastly popular honeydew lager. He’s backed up by barmaid Elsa (think the barbarian in the Red Dragon Inn board game) and Charm (back-of-house, doesn’t take any shit from Arch), then later Cassia (a righteous yet naive templar).

Open the Gate

What starts out as a Legends and Lattes-like cosy story about running an up-and-coming tavern really takes a turn at the arrival of Cassia. This signals the introduction of a subplot that sees her and Arch uncover a corrupt church that runs perpendicular to Arch developing a new beer for the upcoming beer festival. First place in that would guarantee a surge in customers for his own tavern and he just missed out on it last year.

What follows is a real blend of genres that worked well. Rather than descend into narrative chaos, August spends ample time taking us down one path of corruption and peril while sidestepping onto the next; Arch brewing the perfect pumpkin ale. It’s a little like playing a video game and hopping from the main quest onto a side quest and back again.

Arch is portrayed as the retired hero of legend, now haplessly dragged back into the life of a hero again. He’s now more at home running his tavern but shades of the old hero are still evident throughout. August infuses this story with plenty of the impressively powerful magic system and snapshots of Arch’s real power. When the plot takes a menacing turn and Arch let’s go … damn.

The magic system was great. Characters open gates within their mind that unleash greater and greater power over varying states of time and matter. It could take a lifetime to unlock one or two, so those who reach later gates are demonstrably powerful.

Home Brew

You can slice this book into two stories and both are an enjoyable read. I’ve talked about the classic, heroic fantasy side of the book but I also really enjoyed The Tipsy Pelican Tavern tale too!

The ladies employed by Arch as barmaids/back of house are more than a match for him, giving as good as they get. It’s jovial and light-hearted, not taking itself very seriously and throwing the girls into scantily-clad bar clothes. This is where the book reads more like the Love Hina manga where Arch is Keitaro (albeit Keitaro with tremendous power and the girls are a little less punchy). The relationship between Arch and Charm is the main source of this comic relief, setting up a number of scenes where Charm walks in at exactly the wrong moment to misconstrue a situation.

I also enjoyed Arch’s personal quest to brew a beer worthy of winning at the festival. It balanced out the high stakes from the church and criminal underworld moments of the book while still giving us something to root for. It’s clear that the characters are close-knit at the end of it all and form strong ties to the tavern.

Cheers!

So, what does this all mean? It means this first instalment of The Tipsy Pelican Tavern will take you on a ride you weren’t expecting to go on. At 300 pages it’s sufficiently chonky but you won’t feel like you’ve read 300 pages by the end. It’s like a literary equivalent of playing a video game with your tremendously OP character after the credits have rolled. And that’s why I really liked reading this one.