Travis Baldree is a voice actor who narrates audiobooks. His author biography states that, “Apparently, he has now written one book.” Indeed he has. It’s a New York Times bestseller and has been nominated for a Hugo Award.

Legends and Lattes is the name of a coffee shop opened by a retired orc adventurer named Viv. No one in the city of Thune has ever heard of coffee, so it’s a bit of an uphill battle. Viv and her enormous greatsword have been through plenty of battles, but this one is different. The sword now hangs from the wall, decorated in flowers, and is of no use whatsoever for solving Viv’s current problems.

To succeed in the barista business, Viv collects a diverse group with multiple, previously-unrecognized talents. All of them are delightfully quirky and obviously destined to become found family. Most of their difficulties are easily solved with an application of genius—like inventing the croissant or designing an advertising system—but when the Thune equivalent of the Mafia arrive, well . . . maybe things are not quite so simple.

There is an emerging sub-genre of F/SF books featuring diverse characters, unexpected community, and ordinary problems solved by kindness. Readers of Becky Chambers and TJ Klune can add Travis Baldree to their list of authors writing such comfortable books.