Review: Summer Tales From Cozy Vales

Summer Tales From Cozy Vales (A Cozy Fantasy Collection #2)
by L.A. Scott, G. Clatworthy, Bonnie Axton, Cassandra Stirling, Rebecca Buchanan, Miranda Herald, Phillip Sanderson and Elle Steward

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: varries from story, but most are Young Adult or Adult
Type of romance: not all stories have romance, but those that do are m/f

Blurb:
A delightful collection of cozy fantasy stories set in the coziest of worlds!

Grab your picnic basket and favorite cold beverage because the latest offering from the Cozy Vales scribes has hours of summer reading waiting for you!

This anthology features stories set during Summer’s Tide, a two-week holiday celebrating life, love, and nature. Summer’s Tide culminates with High Summer, where residents enjoy a day of festival frivolity and an all-night celebration of revelry, storytelling, and fireworks.

Explore Cozy Vales and these summer holidays through eight different short stories:

The Trouble With Toppers – L.A. Scott
Boule-igans – G Clatworthy
Thorne’s Promotion – Bonnie Axton
Desperate at the Delphinium – Cassandra Stirling
The Green in the Mist – Rebecca Buchanan
The Hatchling Guardian – Miranda Herald
The Baker’s Daughter – Phillip Sanderson
To Brew CommuniTea – Elle Steward

My Review

After reading the Winter Tales From Cozy Vales anthology I started this one which features summer stories. Below I share some brief thoughts about eahc story with a summary of my thoughts of the anthology as a whole at the bottom.

The Trouble With Toppers – L.A. Scott
This was a nice start to this anthology. I just wasn’t a fan of the writing style at times were it’s written as if the author is talking directly to the reader, that pulled me out of the story when it happened. It follows a gnome that likes to thinker which was fun. And there’s this issue he has with acorns in his garden and he think his neighbor is the reason for this, there was an interesting twist at the end which took me by surprise. The ending did feel kinda sudden and I was disappointed to see I had to subscribe to the author’s newsletter to get the epilogue and see them celebrate the summer holiday, I have no problem signing up for newsletters, but I don’t like this tactic for epilogues and I want to finish the story when I am reading it.

Boule-igans – G Clatworthy
It was nice to see a werewolf in the cozy vales. I also liked that this took place in Safron Vale as one of the stories in the Winter anthology mentioned it. I wanted more about Lief though as most of the book focuses on Lief observing two rival families, which wasn’t very engaging. I kept forgetting who was who as each family has multiple members. I did like the scene with Lief saving the slug. The ending felt kinda sudden and abrupt, didn’t resolve the family rivalry (although something did change there) and it didn’t resolve Lief’s struggles with loneliness. It just felt incomplete.

Thorne’s Promotion – Bonnie Axton
I was looking forward tot his one as i enjoyed Bonnie Axton’s story in the winter anthology a lot. This one sadly I didn’t enjoy as much, it was still enjoyable, but I thought the plot was less gripping and interesting. It was nice to see a bit about Thorne who was a side character in the first story. The plot line of him getting back his missing research papers wasn’t as interesting to me, although I did like the ending and the optimistic determined tone of the ending. It felt like there is more to the story and I am looking forward to the next part, but the ending did feel kinda unresolved and just setting up the next stage of the story.

Desperate at the Delphinium – Cassandra Stirling
I didn’t really like this one. It was fun to see Kit and Frangie again, but the story didn’t really grab me. And having two point of views in such a short story was a bit much. I got annoyed at how Iola and Kit accused each other and didn’t like their interactions. The mystery wasn’t as interesting, but as it was a short read I still finished it.

The Green in the Mist – Rebecca Buchanan
I enjoyed this one. It’s a follow up of a story in the Winter Tales anthology, which was fun, but I also liked how that one felt complete until I read this one. It was interesting to read about the troubles with the floating vale and how they’re trying to save it. I also liked seeing many of the same important characters again, although the main character here was a side in the first story. I had just wished there was a mention of the main characters species as I couldn’t remember what she was. The ending is optimistic and the story feels complete. I do recommend reading Rebecca Buchanan’s story in the winter one first as this one will make less sense without that.

The Hatchling Guardian – Miranda Herald
I quite enjoyed this one. It has quite the different vibe as the other stories with how this one takes place in the dessert. It took me a while to get into, but I liked seeing the plot play out and how the main character came to care for the hatchlings. They were so cute to read about and I liked seeing her care for them. The story ends on an optimistic note, but I couldn’t help but feel there could’ve been more and i would’ve liked to read more.

The Baker’s Daughter – Phillip Sanderson
I wasn’t quite sure what to think of the set up with someone telling a story, but by the end thought this was a clever way of telling the story. It was an interesting one and I liked the twist at the end. I also liked that I got to see some of the actual high summer celebrations in this one.

To Brew CommuniTea – Elle Steward
I enjoyed this one and thought it was well done how the author tells a complete story in such a brief amount of pages. I liked how there was enough to get a feel for the main character’s personality and struggles. I liked reading about the tearoom she runs. And there is a nice scene toward the end were she realizes what it means to have friends. And there’s a fun scene involging the high summer celebration.

To summarize: while I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the winter anthology, I still had a lot of fun reading this one. These stories tie around the same summer celebration, but not all stories tie as strongly into the theme and it wasn’t until later in the anthology that there was actually some celebrations on page. It varied a bit from story to story how much I enjoyed them, with a few feeling a bit incomplete or not being as fun to me, but then later there being some really good ones that had a good end and felt complete. There are also a few that are a follow-up on the events from a story in the winter anthology, so I recommend reading that one first. If you like cozy fantasy books I can definitely recommend this anthology, there were some great stories in it and I already look forward to the next anthology!

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.