#BookReview: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Mead Mishaps, #1) by Kimberly Lemming
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy, cozy fantasy
Series: Mead Mishaps #1
Pages: 288
Published by Orbit on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Spice trader Cinnamon's quiet life is turned upside down when she ends up on a quest with a fiery demon in this irreverently quirky rom-com fantasy that is sweet, steamy, and funny as hell—perfect for fans of  Legends & Lattes  and  The Dragon's Bride. 
All she wanted to do was live her life in peace—maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn't involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the Goddess has favorite, and if so, Cin is clearly not one of them... 
After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all Fallon wants to do is kill an evil witch enslaving his people. And, who can blame him? But he's dragging Cinnamon along for the ride. On the bright side, at least he keeps burning off his shirt.

My Review:

There’s a reason this series is titled Mead Mishaps, and when we first meet Cin at the Hero’s Call Festival in her home village of Boohail, we’re dropped right into the thick of it. Or perhaps that should be right into the bottom of a mug of mead, because Cin is literally drunk off her ass when her story begins.

Not that she’d have wanted to think of it that way. Because Cin has become allergic to adventure after losing her sister Cherry to some kind of river monster while they were out on a little adventure of their own. And the Hero’s Call Festival is all about that call to adventure – and Cin wants no part of it.

Although she, along with most of the village, are happy to celebrate the departure of the young woman who has been called to adventure by their goddess Myva to defend the gate to the demon wastelands.

That’s kind of how those stories go, at least without the local attitude about the newly appointed heroine, Priscilla. She’s a lot, and she’s been even more of herself since she was called to join the band of heroes this time around. The village will be happy to see the back of her – in more ways than one.

Everyone in Boohail thinks that the whole adventure/hero thing is settled for the next 15 years, when the gate will open again. Cin is glad it’s not her – or so she believes – and not in the last bit sad that her ex has been chosen as one of the other heroes – or so she tells herself.

But keeping herself convinced requires a LOT of mead. Which is why she’s still more than a bit hungover when she saves the life of an injured man. Who is considerably more than merely a man – also and very much in more ways than one.

He’s a very large, very scary, and surprisingly articulate demon. All of which is supposed to be impossible. Demons are supposed to be safely kept far, far away from Boohail, on the other side of that gate that the just-departed heroes have run off to defend. Demons are supposed to be growling, grunting, inhuman monsters.

Fallon, however, is a big man with a very large plan, a plan that is about to shake Cin’s world to its knees – as well as knocking her straight into an adventure the likes of which she never could have imagined.

Escape Rating B: Every single thing that Cin thinks about her world and herself, and that the reader thinks is happening in it and to her, gets upended pretty much in the first few chapters. Except for one very important thing. As soon as we spend even half a minute inside Cin’s already half drunk head, it’s pretty damn obvious that this book is going to be an absolute romp of an adventure from beginning to end.

The fantasy setup has been done before. It’s one of those stories where everything the protagonist thinks they know turns out to be wrong, wrong, wrong. There are plenty of such stories built on those revelations being revealed, and everyone coming unglued along with them, and angsting over every betrayal.

That’s where this series turns that upending on its own head. Not that what turns out to be a quest and a road trip doesn’t have its serious side, but overall the quest is played mostly for laughs. The villain is truly villainous, and she absolutely has a damn good scam going with some terrible consequences, but overall it seems like her ultimate defeat is inevitable from the first reveal and the fun of the thing is in the journey.

The hard part of that journey, in so many senses of the word, many of which are played for salacious titters to VERY good effect, is the progress of the romance between the demon Fallon and the Spice Girl (literally, Cin’s full name is Cinnamon, she grows cinnamon on her family’s spice farm). It’s clear to everyone except Cin that Fallon is all in on their relationship – if not yet into all of Cin’s private places – from the moment they meet. Cin’s the one who needs some convincing – not about whether she and Fallon set each other on fire – but whether his fire and her desire to never get burned again have a chance at a future.

But they sure do have a LOT of fun, sexy times finding out!

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon is a lighthearted romp of a cozy fantasy that never fades to black when the romance heats up and sets fire to the sheets. It’s an excellent reading time that will leave any romantasy reader with a smile on their face.

So it’s a good thing that this is the first of a trilogy, and that the next book in the series, That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf, will be coming (along with a whole new pirate ship load of sexy puns) next month!

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