Book review: The Baby Dragon Cafe by AT Qureshi

Love amidst dragonfire

Adding to the growing pantheon of easy, breezy reads is the New York based AT Qureshi`s love-and-dragons book. 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`s just after one such accident has reduced Saphira`s brand new espresso machine to a melted mass of steel and cinders, that in walks a dishy guy   with an offer hard for our vivacious and pretty heroine to refuse: would she train his baby dragon Sparky, in return for a healthy sum which will help her get on her feet again businesswise?

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. The dragons come in various vivid breeds, the opalas (yellow eyes and scales), the azuras (blue eyes and scales), garneta (red eyes and scales), basalta (purple eyes, black scales), and more, and thrive on black chips, whatever they were, 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.

Outsiders vs insiders

The tale 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, her calling her grandmother Nani-Ma, it`s clear she`s an outsider by circumstances of her birth.

The curious thing is that the author sets up several potential trouble spots, then demolishes them all too easily. Saphira`s boyfriend is a pureblood, to use Potterspeak, and belongs to a powerful rich clan. All through the story, we see instances of Saphira being made to feel the pretender, either through disdain shown by other old Drakkon families who might happily give her café custom but are not as happy to accept her into their circle, or through unkind comments she happens to (frequently) overhear.

While not precisely working in allegorical fashion, this being- an- outsider theme is a leitmotif. Its resolution but naturally involves Saphira undergoing an arduous test straight of an Arthurian fairy tale, but the author keeps it  –disappointingly — light and we aren’t shown any suffering as such.

Read this feelgood book if you have an afternoon to spare from the hard grind of living, and if you want to know stuff you always wanted to know but didn’t know you wanted to know, about baby dragons.

 The Baby Dragon Café by A T Qureshi.  HarperCollins Books. 309 pages.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2025/Apr/20/you-me-and-the-dragons

This appeared in the New Sunday Express Magazine of 20 April 2025.