Synopsis:
An undead orc knight leaves battle behind for a new kind of afterlife—one with good food, good friends, and maybe even fatherhood.
Rottgor is worn out. Literally. Barely held together by dark magic, he has protected the Necropolis for centuries. When he’s forced into retirement, he’s faced with a new challenge: to forge a future guided not by obligation, but by passion.
Following his heart (and stomach), he decides to open a restaurant where the city’s undead and living residents can share food and community. He’s helped in his quest by an unlikely assortment of neighbors, including elves, skeletons, vampires—and a young orphan girl named Astra, whose ancestry, if discovered, could put her and the entire Necropolis in danger. To protect Astra and the life he’s building, Rottgor must face his past and form new alliances built on friendship, loyalty, and love. As comforting as warm pumpkin bread, this gentle fantasy traces how even a dark history can rise into a bright future.
Review:
The day that I read Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife was, admittedly, rough. At 8 o’clock that morning, I received word that my father had passed away and by 4 pm I was on an Amtrak, heading towards my mother and siblings to prepare a funeral. I needed something to take my mind off of my own life while I sat on the quiet train between southern Illinois and Chicago, so I picked up my ARC of Deston J. Munden’s latest.
Looking back on that decision, my own life unequivocally altered my perception of Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife, but there’s nothing I can do now to ever take one away from the other in my mind…and that’s okay. In fact, I think Munden’s words brought me some much-needed comfort and closure on a day when I desperately needed it. While I sat all alone on a dark train, making its way through the suburbs of Chicago, I found a balm for my own feelings of my father in the father-figure of Rottgor.
On the surface, this is a story similar to those from Travis Baldree and his Legends & Lattes series with a grizzled warrior who has entered a new phase of their life (or afterlife in this case) and all that comes with it. For Rottgor/Razgaif, he’s been in the service of the kingdom and conquest for centuries, only for freedom from his monotonous existence thrust upon him almost unwillingly. Razgaif hasn’t had the normal life of the rest of the kingdom, but once he meets Astra, his life changes. He has to decide what he wants when he was never really given a choice and a life of a chef…and the life of a father is a life that he almost can’t believe in — it’s almost too good for the former soldier, in his mind.
The cozy-ness is definitely on display here, but there are moments that seem to get away from the genre a little bit. Overall, I don’t know that I would say I “enjoyed” reading this book. Perhaps in a different time and a different place, maybe I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but I wasn’t in the right head-space for it. Perhaps, instead of “enjoyment”, I felt a sense of comfort and understanding as I tried to mourn my own father and his life while reading about Razgaif and what his days would be like after losing his way of life and how Astra and his new friends fit into those days going forward.
I would definitely recommend Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife, especially for fans of cozy fantasy reads. Thank you to Bindery Books for providing this book for review consideration through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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