Five novels that worldbuild through fashion and food.
Always interested in fantasy novels that emphasize food. And I guess fashion is okay, too, though from there I get distracted by architecture and that goes off in every direction, and the point is, I like food, so let’s focus on that.
Or … maybe not! Because I like the sound of this one, which focuses on fashion:
Spin the Dawn, says Amazon, is is a story where Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping fantasy about a teenage girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars.
And I have to say, lots to love about this, including the girl-disguised-as-boy trope. Also the fairy-tale dresses. Also, the cover is lovely.
Does that list have a novel as intriguing as the above, but one that focuses on food?
Not really. There’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, but that was my first T Kingfisher DNF, because the heroine was such an idiot that I just couldn’t stand it and quit.
Legends and Lattes, but it just sounds a little silly for my personal taste. The title, I mean. It just sounds … silly. I realize everyone seems to love it. But … it just sounds silly.
Thus we see that the title does make a difference. If Terry Pratchett had titled one of his books Captain Carrot, or anything of the kind, I would probably never have read that either. Or very reluctantly, after many recommendations, maybe. But it’s painful just to think about picking up a book with such a silly title. Even describing Legends and Lattes as “ridiculously cozy” isn’t enough to make me pick it up.
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Thanks for pointing this out! This cover is 100% by Jody Lee. Her art on DAW books in the late 80s and 90s really introduced me to female written sf&f books, I used to look for her art every time I visited London’s Forbidden Planet for buying books (usually once a year after having worked during the university term break to have the money for that, hah) https://www.jodylee.org/cover-portfolio
A series were food is important and part of the plot is the cozy fantasy litrpg series by Maggie Hogarth (aka M.C. Hogarth) https://www.goodreads.com/series/355923-haley-and-nana
Thanks for the pointer, Estara! I’ll look the Hogarth one up.
I bounced off Legends & Lattes when I first tried to read it (as I often do with books that have a lot of hype surrounding them as they rarely live up to my expectations), but I tried it again with some distance this year and got on better. It’s a Hallmark movie sort of fantasy novel (a little romance, a checkered past that isn’t too checkered, a slowly built community that rallies around the heroine when she needs them) with a bit of the roughness typical of debut novels, so I think if you go in with that expectation you might like it. It is a bit twee, though, but not to the extent I found it unreadable, and I have a low threshold for tweeness.
I would recommend it for the much better prequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, that had both substance and heart (and while I don’t usually have strong opinions about reading order I really would recommend reading the prequel second as it has a nice little epilogue that ties back into the first novel where the main character, older and settled, receives a letter from a character in the prequel and I don’t think it would hit the same way encountering that first!)
Thanks, Sandstone, that’s a very helpful comment.
I bounced off Legends and Lattes partway through the sample. But I’ll give the other one by that writer a shot.
They overlooked that James Burton pair (one title was POWERS) where the immortal protagonist and his lady friend both have strong opinions and skills for cooking. Fashion, not so much, which may be why this pair didn’t get mentioned.
Elizabeth Lim is familiar …. oh, Six Crimson Cranes – that and the sequel weren’t bad. It’s the swan princes, but the stepmother had an excellent reason for changing them into birds. Nothing else by her caught either my attention or the Teen’s.
Jody Lee’s art has improved a lot since the 80s and 90s.
I think I have recommended this before as cozy, but To Hive and to Hold by Amy Crook might fit the bill. A magical apothecary with a hive of magic bees on his roof meets his new neighbor, a magical tattooist. There is a lot of barter with different communities and meals being prepared or purchased. There’s some attention to the economics and logistics of food in the setting, Earth with a recent incursion of magic that disrupted society. There’s also some fashion especially as the tattooist explores a genderfluid identity by changing their wardrobe.
I don’t remember that title, OtterB, but it does sound thoroughly cozy!
OtterB, I bought that book on your recommendation and really liked it. I went on to read Amy Crook’s series that starts with The courtship of Julian St.Albans, that is a combination of detective stories and a central M/M romance, with an elaborate magical system in a sort of early 20th century English society world except without the homophobia. One of the protagonists is quite interested in fashion, and food is very important and often described in detail.
Depending on taste, some of the descriptions may be a bit too cloying, but it definitely fits the parameters.
Another that might fit is Casey Blair’s series/trilogy the Tea Princess Chronicles, that starts with A coup of tea. It’s more about tea than food, with some intrigues, magic and dragons; fairly light.
And for younger readers, Stephanie Burgis’ The dragon with a chocolate heart, which is about chocolate rather than food in general, but tge making of good chocolate is important!
I’ve got A Coup of Tea on my (immense) TBR pile — and I second the vote for The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart.