Roast Wyvern

by Ian Thomas Healy, Nathaniel Dickson (illustrator)

A Recipe for Fun
Chef Muffin is no adventurer, but she's going to have to figure out how to become one. She's got to prepare a fantastic dish for a royal wedding, using ingredients she's never heard of, that she'll have to travel the breadth of the world to find. If she fails, she loses her livelihood, but if she succeeds...like every true fantasy adventurer...fame and fortune await. And, if she's lucky, she might even find true love into the bargain.

389 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 27, 2024

About the author

Ian Thomas Healy is a prolific writer who dabbles in many different speculative genres. His superhero novel Deep Six: A Just Cause Novel was a Top 100 Semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award. He’s a seven-time participant and winner of National Novel Writing Month where he’s tackled such diverse subjects as sentient alien farts, competitive forklift racing, a religion-powered rabbit-themed superhero, cyberpunk mercenaries, cowboy elves, and an unlikely combination of vampires with minor league hockey. He is also the creator of the Writing Better Action Through Cinematic Techniques workshop, which helps writers to improve their action scenes.

His goal is to become as integral to the genre of superhero fiction as William Gibson was to cyberpunk and Anne Rice was to urban fantasy.

Ian lives in Colorado with his wife, three children, and a plethora of housepets. When not writing, which is rare, he likes to take road trip, enjoys watching football and hockey, and listening to or playing music. His ebooks can be found on Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, iBook Store, and other online retailers.

Reviews

[Shalomar Tyrloc · Rating 5 out of 5]

A light-hearted and entertaining adventure. Muffin is a loveable character. A chef who must go on an adventure and find answers other than brute force to the perils of the road. Strong language but I can see this story appealing to a wide range of ages.

I laughed out loud at many of the scenes. A stoner gnome, french elves, true love, and FOOD

[Jo Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A feast for readers!

Anyone who loves a good adventure will love this book. Echoing well-loved epic tales, it delivers action, romance, peril, and takes the reader on a quest filled with unforgettable characters.

[Regina Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful cozy adventure, just as advertised! Muffin and Wally are so cute. The depth of character in a short amount of time and the detail of individual voices was lovely. ITH has such a crisp, clean style here that it made for quick reading. A refreshing break from the world.

[T.K. Toppin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful adventure into a fantasy realm, with Muffin, a feisty young woman and her best friend, Wally. Together, they travel the land to seek ingredients to make a special dish for the royals, because, after all, Muffin is a chef. Along the way, they encounter a diverse group of individuals, from ogres to trolls and elves, adventurers, and gnomes who are persistently high, not to mention naked druids. The story flowed easily, with a strong character-driven core, and a rich and delicious flair for capturing the finer details of the culinary wonders. A wonderful, satisfying read that left me chuckling many times.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muffin runs a venerable café in her tiny town, having taken over from her chef father after he surrendered to the bottle following the disappearance of his son. When an invitation comes for him to cook a special dish for the Princess’s wedding, Muffin accepts in his stead and sets out to find all the ingredients and cook for the nobility. Her friend Wally, a stablehand and aspiring squire, accompanies her, and along the way they build a cadre of adventurers — a ranger, a troll, and a gnome — with gifts that make Muffin’s goal reachable.

This delightful cozy fantasy was a fun diversion! Muffin is a character with spunk and determination, and the friendships among the little band are solid. The setting is lovingly described, and the humor and pop culture references are entertaining. While there are confrontations with some nasty types, there is minimal gore.

Healy does a great job taking traditional tropes and twisting them a bit. The ranger knows his stuff, but has a talent for stepping into trouble, for instance, and the druids the group encounters are like Woodstock refugees set down in a high fantasy landscape.

The pace of the book was quick, and even though at times the group seems to be in danger, their wit and skills are as important as any familiarity with weapons in keeping them safe.

[R.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous and light-hearted, this is a fantasy you want to read around a campfire.

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the quest and I love (love, love, love) fantasy that focuses on food. The adventures of Chef Muffin reminded me a lot of the series "Delicious in Dungeon" and often had me laughing out loud. This mix-matched band of characters are charming and their misadventures are anything but predictable.

That being said, as is usually the case with humor-based fantasy, there was a decent amount of cursing and the humor tended to lean more into the vulgar side of things (almost branching into satire) which I skipped over because it wasn't quite my cup of tea. But overall, the story kept my interest and the characters were loveable and easy to root for.

Content disclaimers: Cursing - high. Spice: None on page, but *very* often a topic of conversation (or thought) and there were many out-of-pocket remarks. Gore: I would say none, but if you're squeamish about the details of hunting for food, then you might consider some scenes uncomfortable. Other content: There's a character who would smoke literally anything to get h*gh. So, the dr*g and alcohol references are extremely present.