The Baby Dragon Cafe
by A.T. Qureshi
Summary
When Saphira opens her cafe, welcoming pet baby dragons, she isn’t expecting it to be quite so hard to keep the fires burning. But her young dragon patrons keep incinerating her furniture, which means selling coffee isn’t covering all her costs.
Local heart-throb Aiden is a gardener, though his disobedient baby dragon is a major distraction from his beloved plants. However, Saphira’s café gives him an idea – he’ll ask Saphira to train his dragon, and pay her enough to keep the café afloat.
They know they’re the answer to each other’s problems, but happy-go-lucky Saphira and gorgeous-but-grumpy Aiden couldn’t be more different. Can they find a way to work together – and maybe even ignite some fire of their own?
My Review
Stopped the audiobook around the 7% mark.
1 star based on the portion I read
I was really excited to dive into this cozy fantasy. The premise sounded so fun and charming! Unfortunately, the writing didn’t live up to my expectations. It felt overly simplistic, almost like a middle-grade book written by a middle grader. The storytelling relied too much on telling rather than showing, often overexplaining details instead of letting the narrative flow naturally. Additionally, the baby dragons were essentially treated like puppies, to the point where they could have been swapped with any other animal without changing the story. It was a disappointing read, and I ultimately had to set it aside.