Adding to the growing pantheon of easy, breezy reads is the New York-based AT Qureshi’s book The Baby Dragon Cafe. Be warned, though: it reads young. The protagonist Saphira runs a café for people who wish to bring their baby dragons in while they relish a cuppa chai or coffee, or something more exotic like chai lattes, dragon-roasted coffee (which is exactly what you think it is) and falooda shakes. Despite having an innate fondness for and deftness in handling baby dragons, she’s still a novice, and accidents (mainly due to dragonfire, which is lethal even emerging from a small dragon’s mouth) keep happening, sometimes with economically drastic consequences. It is just after one such accident that has reduced Saphira’s brand-new espresso machine to a melted mass of steel and cinders, walks in a dishy guy with an offer hard for our vivacious and pretty heroine to refuse: would she train his baby dragon? The offer, in return for a healthy sum may help stabilise her business and get on her feet again.
One thing, of course, leads to another, and before we know it, there’s a romance catching fire and progressing steadily. There’s quite a bit of understanding and empathy too, since both Saphira and Aiden are reeling from the recent loss of a loved one. And there’s a sprinkling of charm-dust all over the tale, all to do with dragons, of course. They come in various breeds: the opalas (yellow eyes and scales), the azuras (blue eyes and scales), the garnetas (red eyes and scales), the basaltas (purple eyes, black scales), and more, and thrive on black chips, karela juice, and sour foods. The dragon owners need to take out Drakkon insurance. And training a baby dragon involves getting them to control the fire emerging from their mouths, learning to socialise and learning to fly.
The story is set in a place called Starshine Valley, peopled by humans as well as dragons, phoenixes, chimeras, and griffons. And while Saphira Margala’s ancestry is only hinted at with mentions of her dusky skin, her penchant for gold bangles, her fondness for amaltas trees and kachnar gosht, and her calling her grandmother Nani-Ma, its clear she’s an outsider by circumstances of her birth.