A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons (Adenashire, #2) by J. Penner Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, dragons, fantasy, fantasy romance, foodie fiction, romantasy
Series: Adenashire #2
Pages: 304
Published by Poisoned Pen Press on June 3, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
Spilling the tea has never been so cozy…
In the quaint town of Adenashire, Doli Butterbuckle, a people-pleasing sunshine dwarf, is content with her simple tea magic and circle of friends. It’s true she’s never quite lived up to family expectations, but life is just fine...until her parents arrive with an inherited dragon egg and then a charming gargoyle harboring a secret strolls into her life.
As Doli grapples with her newfound responsibility and discovers a long hidden side of herself, she must face an overbearing family, a sinister plot, and a mischievous dragon that refuses to stay out of trouble.
But with the help of her loyal friends and newfound love, Doli embarks on a heartwarming adventure, revealing that embracing her true self is the most enchanting path of all.
Escape to Adenashire for a whimsical, cozy fantasy where every steaming cup of tea holds the promise of inner strength.
My Review:
After scooping up the magically delicious series opener, A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic, I knew it would be impossible for this reader to resist this second book in the Adenashire series. So I didn’t even try,
Who could resist this combination of books and dragons? Certainly not this reader.
This second book is a direct follow up to the ending of Bakers, with the baker contestants from the Langheim Baking Battle following second-place winner Arleta back to her cozy hometown of Adenashire.
The human Arleta has returned home because she loves the place – in spite of the way she’s sometimes been treated as a non-magical human. And because her adopted fathers, the orcs Verdreth and Ervash, are there and she loves them to bits – admittedly fairly large bits – and vice versa. That she’s returned from the Baking Battle with new recipes, new confidence, a new love in her life and a new partner in her fledgling business means that while Arleta may not have won the Baking Battle, she’s still come out on top in every way that matters.
Even better, especially from Arleta’s perspective, the friends she made during the contest followed her home, because Adenashire just sounded like it would be a lot cozier, and more comfortable in more ways than one, than whatever and wherever they came from.
That’s particularly true for dwarf Doli Butterbuckle, a woman with a magical gift for making tea and providing hospitality and comfortable surroundings for all her friends. Even if her innate desire to be a ‘people pleaser’ makes her the one uncomfortable person among the people that she’s made oh-so-comfortable.
Because Doli may be comfortable – mostly, more or less – in her own skin and with her own magical gifts, but that gift is VERY unusual for a dwarf and her loud and overbearing parents seem to never tire of reminding her that she’s unacceptably different from her sisters and not who or what they think she’s supposed to be.
They don’t see the real Doli, they don’t hear the real Doli – mostly because her mother never shuts up about ALL of Doli’s many, many failings – with the result that Doli was more than happy to head to Adenashire and be far away from their loud and constant expressions of disappointment.
That she might just be about to embark upon a relationship that has the potential to put ALL of the romance novels that she loves so much into the shade should be icing on a very tasty cake indeed.
Which is just when she finally opens all the mail that she’s been avoiding for WEEKS to discover that her parents are arriving in Adenashire the very next day and it’s making her miserable. Because they do – even if they don’t REALLY mean to. And Doli’s life has already been upset enough by her family, as her legacy from her late uncle has arrived – and hatched into a rare, adorable, manipulative baby dragon that entirely too many people will do anything to take advantage of.
Including her mother.
Escape Rating B: This series is every bit as comforting as the tea made by Doli’s magic. Even if – as is true in this case – Doli herself isn’t particularly comfortable while she’s making it. Then again, this is very much Doli’s story of becoming comfortable with her magic AND herself – and of finally getting her mother to listen long enough to STFU.
(Doli’s parents – especially her mother – were a bit of a trigger for me. Your reading mileage hopefully varies a LOT.)
Howsomever, as much as Doli’s parents pained her – and me – what they represent seems to, well, represent a big part of what this series is built on. Arleta went to the Baking Battle, however reluctantly, to come into herself.
Doli followed Arleta to Adenashire to be in a place where she can fully come into herself – far away from the outsized shadows that her parents cast over everything. (Based on hints, it also looks like the final two members of the team followed Arleta to Adenashire for the same reason.)
Just as Arleta needed to learn to stand up for herself – with more than a little help from her friends – this time around it’s Doli who needs to learn to make herself seen and heard for who she really is. Which leads to the agency for that transformation – in this case baby dragon Evvy.
Evvy’s part in this story reminded me of The Baby Dragon Cafe, meaning that baby Evvy is every bit as cute AND destructive as the baby dragons in THAT story. (That’s also a hint for a readalike for this particular entry in the series, along with Legends & Lattes, Can’t Spell Treason without Tea, AND That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon if you don’t mind a LOT more sexytimes with your cozy fantasy.)
The third element that makes this series so cozy is, of course, the romance that develops, in this case between dwarf Doli and gargoyle Sarson. (I’m kinda glad that the sex scenes in this story are strictly fade to black because I don’t think it fits. So to speak. Ahem. Even though Doli and Sarson certainly do. Somehow. Again AHEM.)
I think if I hadn’t already loved A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic the mess with Doli’s parents might have made me bail, but I persevered because I KNEW the good stuff was coming – and it SO did.
The romance between Doli and Sarson was as adorably sweet as Doli herself is, with just enough tension added by her parents and his secrets to make their HEA entirely earned. Evvy, the baby dragon with a BIG purpose was delightful even as she pushed the story forward AND pushed breakables off the table when she didn’t get her share of the deliciously described baked goods.
Most important of all, Doli found her way to herself, to getting her parents to see her as she is, and that she is happy with who she is, while taking on board that she didn’t have to twist herself into a pretzel to please everyone around her so that she could be loved. That she was already loved for exactly, precisely, herself – and had been all along.
I left Doli and her crew with smiles on their faces and mine as well. I smiled even more when the eARC for the third book in this delightful cozy fantasy series, A Fellowship of Games & Fables, popped up within a few minutes of my closing the last page. It will be a sweet treat of a read to pick up this fall.
