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This is a campy and cute story, full of heart. I adored how Luka (the vampire), Sakura (the son of the bathhouse owner), Ume (the tiny brother of Sakura), and the imp Pequeño became a found family. It was sweet and funny. Highly recommended!

I only wish it was more gay! The first chapter sets up a potential romance between Luka and Sakura. While that doesn't turn into a sexual relationship, the emotional relationship growth was very satisfying. However, the story comes with the standard Japanese plot trope of "omg fantasy character is bisexual and human must protest profusely every time he is hit on". Ripe for a fanfiction rewrite. Make it more gay, cowards!

Regardless, it was a highly fun read, and I would highly recommend it to others.

This is a campy and cute story, full of heart. I adored how Luka (the vampire), Sakura (the son of the bathhouse owner), Ume (the tiny brother of Sakura), and the imp Pequeño became a found family. It was sweet and funny. Highly recommended!

I only wish it was more gay! The first chapter sets up a potential romance between Luka and Sakura. While that doesn't turn into a sexual relationship, I loved how Luka learned how best to support Sakura. The emotional relationship growth was satisfying, but it comes with the standard Japanese plot trope of omg fantasy character is bisexual and human must protest profusely every time he is hit on. Ripe for a fanfiction rewrite. Make it more gay, cowards!

Regardless, it was a highly fun read, and I would recommend it to others.

I really wanted to like this book, but I gave up 50 pages in.

The premise is great -- a non-magical human competes in a baking competition. Cozy fantasy has been my jam lately.

However, the writing is mediocre at best, and boring at worst.

The main character has a lot of anxieties (I can relate!) but in the 50 pages, I saw no starts of character growth to address those fears, and no openings in the plot to challenge the MC.

Minor inconveniences in the journey that could create tension and the start of character growth are solved within a page or sometimes within a paragraph by outside forces. The story became a tedious slog of the MC being worried about something, everyone around them sharing reassuring words, and then someone else fixes the problem, or worse, the problem is deus ex machina'ed away. I got grumpy and decided to stop reading.

I would read more about the gay orc neighbors -- they're far more interesting than the MC.