SUMMARY
The perfect read for fans of Pumpkin Spice Café and Legends and Lattes!
When Saphira opened up her café for baby dragons and their humans, she wasn’t expecting it to be so difficult to keep the fires burning. It turns out, young dragons are not the best magical animals to keep in a café, and replacing all that burnt furniture is costing Saphira more than she can afford from selling dragon-roasted coffee.
Aiden is a local gardener, and local heart-throb, more interested in his plants than actually spending time with his disobedient baby dragon. When Aiden walks into Saphira’s café, he has a genius idea – he’ll ask Saphira to train his baby dragon, and he’ll pay her enough to keep the café afloat.
Saphira’s happy-go-lucky attitude doesn’t seem to do anything but irritate the grumpy-but-gorgeous Aiden, except that everywhere she goes, she finds him there. But can this dragon café owner turn her fortunes around, and maybe find love along the way?
Image & Summary from Goodreads.
REVIEW
The Baby Dragon Cafe by Aamna Qureshi was my last read for February 2025. It follows Saphira who owns a cafe that caters to owners of baby dragons – the first of its kind in Starshine Valley. We also get introduced to Aiden who owns a baby dragon – Sparky who is quite naughty and needs training though Aiden doesn’t really have the time to be training a baby dragon while trying to run his business.
I bought this book based off the cover, it looked like a cosy read and the cover art is so cute. I guess I really did judge a book by its cover and I’m glad I did. It was such a cute read and I really enjoyed seeing the initial mischief that Sparky got into.
This was a fairly quick read for me, even if it took a little bit of time to get into. Once I was past the initial first couple of chapters, the book picked up. Though it might have been because I haven’t read a YA novel in a few years. This book has a dual POV and it was done ok. You got to know the backstory of both Saphira and Aiden through their own POV but some of it felt a little repetitive.
For a cosy fantasy read, the world building was quite easy to understand where each location was and how the different magical creatures like phoenixes, chimeras, griffins and dragons all occupy different areas of Starshine Valley with humans. You also got to learn about the different types of dragons in this book and this was fairly easy to keep up with when the other types are mentioned in the book.
There was good communication throughout the book for both Saphira and Aiden and they both acted mature whenever situations arose. There was no miscommunication throughout the book though I did have a fear that Aiden would hide what he knew about Saphia’s mum until the 3rd act but he didn’t and was open about what he knew.
This was a slow burn romance with some fake marriage before they eventually got together though their feelings toward each other were slightly noticeable. It also talks about grief and how they are both dealing with loss of loved ones in both their lives. It really put into perspective how everyone grieves differently and how little things are a big reminder sometimes.
All in all this was such a cosy read and the warmth you felt while they are at the cafe was greatly felt personally. I gave this 4 stars and cannot wait for The Baby Dragon Bakery to come out later this year.
-Rachelle
I’m on Instagram at @rachellesbookshelf
