Breadknives and Boomsticks

By Marie Cardno

Cozy fantasy. Terrible baking.

Runa is meant to be ferrying heroes to their next adventure, not fighting a tiny fire lizard over stolen scones.
When a magical catastrophe leaves half-troll Runa stranded far from her adventuring party, she holes up in the nearest shelter she can find: an abandoned bakery in Pothollow, a town whose quirky inhabitants jump at the chance to have someone else do their doughy work… despite the fact that Runa can’t tell a croissant from a crossbow.

Runa has spent most of her life avoiding what she’s meant to be. For the first time, she discovers what she wants to be, instead.

Even if she’s really, really bad at it.

But when a knife-wielding priestess with the best hair she’s ever seen appears in her basement, Runa’s new life crumbles around her. Pothollow isn’t just the coziest and most strangely welcoming place she’s ever had the luck to stumble into – it’s also home to a hive of secrets.

And Runa’s own secrets might bring it all down in flames.

Breadknives and Boomsticks is a cozy fantasy for readers who love heroines whose domestic skills have always taken a back seat to their ability to hit monsters with a big stick, set in a world where half the wildlife is the result of wizardly experiments gone wrong, the geography has an attitude, and good customer service means not letting your clients get eaten by either.