In recent years, a trend has emerged labeled “cozy fantasy.” One of its most notable examples is Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes. Originally self-published, the book’s popularity spread through word of mouth and BookTok and eventually led to the re-publication by Tor, becoming a New York Times bestseller. It features a bookstore, a retired mercenary, and a lot of charming magic, both figurative and literal. It is a delightful, low stakes read that is indeed…cozy.
Cozy fantasy is a quintessential comfort read, and it makes sense that so much of it has sprung up at a time when the world seems so dire. It emphasizes the power of kindness, found family, and community, and doesn’t have epic violence or world-shaking global events but rather local outcomes, small scale victories like revitalizing a dying town, refurbishing a community center, or even just making a grumpy customer smile. Rather than being set in the big city, it takes place in small towns and rural communities, and its magics are usually small and mundane as well.
It draws on a mythos that feels very Dungeons & Dragons at times; protagonists rub elbows with friendly orcs, spriggans, dwarves, and a horde of other magical creatures — and sometimes (quite often) those protagonists are magical themselves. And the worlds are ones where most people are kind, or just…
