Travis Baldree

Travis Baldree spent his first career in video games, co-founding Runic Games and serving as project director on the action RPG Torchlight and its sequel, before becoming one of audiobook narration's most sought-after voices — including narrating the entire Cradle series by Will Wight and, in 2025, winning an Audie Award for narrating his own novel. He turned to writing fiction almost by accident, self-publishing Legends & Lattes in 2022 as what he's described as a low-stakes personal project: a cozy fantasy following Viv, a battle-scarred orc mercenary who retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop in a small town instead. The book became a surprise New York Times bestseller, won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and is widely credited with helping launch "cozy fantasy" as a recognized, fast-growing subgenre. Baldree has continued building the same low-stakes, high-comfort world with Bookshops & Bonedust (2023), a prequel following Viv earlier in her mercenary career, the novella Goblins & Greatcoats (2024), and Brigands & Breadknives (2025), with a further collection, Tales from the Territory, due in October 2026. New readers should start with Legends & Lattes itself — the books are gentle, low-conflict fantasy built around found family and small-town life rather than epic stakes, and largely read as standalones within the shared world. Baldree continues to write, narrate, and expand the series.