The first book in a new series called The Dell Chronicles, HL Bernabe’s Cooking Up Magick sets out to be a cozier fantasy version of The Lord of the Rings. And in many ways, it does pull directly from J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. The main character, Paisley, is a halfling who gets swept up on an adventure with a pair of dwarves, but unbeknownst to her, there’s also an evil overlord that has just returned after centuries – and she’s the only hope the world has to actually stop him.
The similarities to The Hobbit and LOTR pretty much end there though, and you don’t get nearly enough detail in the first book to effectively flesh out this alternate version of Middle-earth. What you do get is a lovable main character who is surrounded by an interesting cast of characters. There’s cooking, there’s magic, and there’s even a bit of romantasy thrown in here, but Cooking Up Magick doesn’t serve up enough of any of it to fully bring its story to life.
Cooking Up Magick shines brightest whenever the core characters are interacting with each other. Paisley is a bubbly bright spot among the crew, capable of immense courage and compassion. She has a sort of magnetism that rubs off on her friends and which helps shine a light on each of their individual personalities. Her conversations and moments with her newfound friends (and her Half-Orc love interest) really help to ground the story’s core concept of found family.
Naturally, these moments are often centered around the idea of cooking or magic. Paisley’s driving reason for leaving her home and her family’s inn is that she wants to discover new and exciting recipes to eventually bring back. Her sense of adventure is entirely tied to the idea of roaming the world and dipping her toes in the culinary culture it has to offer. But that core motivation quickly fades to the background as larger events start to unfold. There are flashes where cooking comes to the forefront of the story, but it rarely feels like food actually matters beyond an initial plot driver and a reason for the characters to come together.
As someone who is always happy to geek out about cooking, I expected the author to showcase more of that in Paisley's character. It’s clear that she likes it, sure, but the writing seems to spend too much time telling us that and not enough time showing it. Going into this book, I had hoped to see Delicious in Dungeon-levels of enthusiasm for cooking and found myself a bit disappointed that it wasn’t what I got.
So while Paisley’s personality doesn’t necessarily shine through her cooking, we do get a better feeling for it through her magical ability. She doesn’t discover her powers until the story progresses a bit, but once they start to manifest, they show up in ways you’d expect from a compassionate chef. She’s able to draw power from her love of her companions and spread that to the world around her. With this power, she’s able to heal, protect, and even connect on a deeper level with her friends. But once she gains her magic, cooking pretty much takes a backseat for the story, and sure, seeing as she’s the first new sorcerer in this world in a really long time, it definitely makes sense for this to take over the story. As she learns about her new powers, so do we, and it’s some of the best Paisley character building we get in the entire story.
Beyond the core characters, much of the book is driven by Verzod, the evil sorcerer. He’s the one who’s inciting war in an otherwise peaceful land, and acts as the obvious antagonist to Paisley (and everyone else). Despite getting multiple chapters from his perspective, it’s hard to draw any other conclusions about him beyond his just being the pure embodiment of evil. The only character depth we’re really able to glean is his soft spot for his lost talking cat, Whipclaw. But since said cat spends most of the book with Paisley, we don’t really get to explore that side of him. I would have much preferred to have left him as a mysterious outside entity that gets revealed in later books, but there’s still plenty of room to flesh out his motives later on. As is, his existence serves its purpose as the inciting action of the story.