The Baby Dragon Bookshop by Aamna Qureshi

Tracy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Series: The Baby Dragon #3

Release Date: February 3, 2026

Emmaline “Emmy” Sterling the owner of Inferno, a dragon-roasted coffee company decides to expand her business, she approaches Anh, the matriarch of the Trang family and learns that she is not the only coffee business looking for investors. Her nemesis, Luke Hayward, the owner of Tempest, a chimera-roasted coffee company. Her trouble with Luke started seven years ago, when he dumped her sister Millie, after they hooked up. To avenge her sister, Emmy caught Luke’s attention and after one date and night of passion, she dumped him in retaliation. Since then, she has gone out of her way to avoid him and forget he exists. Now to get Anh to invest in her company she must compete with Luke to open a coffee shop in the Tales & Tails Bookshop, the best coffee shop design will open the coffee shop and Anh will invest in their business. Now she has to see Luke almost every day for the next six weeks, and on top of that, her family is demanding her attention and she can’t say no. She is feeling the pressure and despite everything, she finds herself liking Luke, which is completely unacceptable – right?

Luke has been pining for Emmy for seven long years, when they met he had no idea she was Millie’s sister and he knows that he acted like a jerk when he broke up with her, but he knew they had no future and didn’t want to lead her on, but when he met Emmy, he felt something he had never felt before and was sure she was “the one” only to be dumped by her the morning after their amazing night together. He understood her anger but was sure that she would realize that they had something special. He seriously underestimated Emmy’s loyalty to her family – even thought her sister has long since married a man she is madly in love with and has several children. When Anh first proposes that they merge companies, Luke is happy to agree, but clearly Emmy does not and instead he agrees to a competition to win the investment, something he desperately needs to keep his business afloat and to help his very ill mother. But that doesn’t mean he can try to win Emmy’s heart at the same time – right?

I loved the blurb for this book and couldn’t wait to dive into the story, even though I hadn’t read the previous books in the series. Sadly, I just had a hard time getting into this book because I didn’t really understand the world the author has built – I don’t know the purpose of the dragons, I don’t know why there seem to be different “factions” of mythical beasts, and honestly, I didn’t like Emmy for most of the book. Overall, the premise of the book was great, and maybe if I had read the previous books and understood the world that the author built, I might have enjoyed this book more than I did – by the end of the story, Emmy did redeem herself, but by then, I had pretty much lost interest. So, while this book was a miss for me, I am sure this book will appeal to fans of cozy fantasy stories and have read the previous books, be sure to check out this book.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *