Autumn 2026: the inn at the foot of the mount vengeance by chiara bullen

When I first saw that The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance was about 700 pages long, I was a little bit scared. I remember thinking, “What kind of situation did I put myself into?”. I am not used to reading cozy fantasy, and 700 pages seemed like a lot and could easily get boring. But by the time I finished it, I realised that its length did not bother me. The pace is slow, yes, but it does fit the story very well. With a legendary mountain, a dragon, adventurers, and a historian who arrives at an inn because of his research, the novel could have quickly turned into a more traditional fantasy quest. Instead, Chiara Bullen takes her time. Perhaps, that is the point. And I like to think of it that way. I was not sure what to expect from a cozy fantasy when I started the book, but Bullen makes what could have been a potential heroic quest into something much quieter. The more I read, the more I felt that this was not a story about someone who could (or not) climb a mountain, but about why they felt they had to climb it in the first place.

Published in 2026, the novel follows Ainsworth, an ambitious historian from the Skarrow Library, who travels to an inn at the foot of Mount Vengeance as part of his research. The mountain is famous for the dragon at its top, and for the adventurers who have spent years trying to reach it and become heroes. Ainsworth is not an adventurer, he is interested in the history of the mountain and the people who have attempted to conquer it. When he arrives at the inn, he expects people to respect him and his position at the Skarrow Library. Instead, people do not seem so impressed by his academic status.

At first, the mountain represents success, through climbing it, defeating the dragon, finding the hoard, and becoming heroes. It is almost the perfect fantasy quest. So I was surprised when I realised that the novel did not seem interested in doing it that way. The mountain is still there. The dragon is still there. The possibility of becoming a hero is still there. And yet, the adventurers decide that they just do not need to do it anymore.

While reading these scenes, I started to see the mountain as more than just a mountain but a metaphor. The adventurers’ mountain is literal, but then the story suggests that everyone has their own version of Mount Vengeance, something they believe they have to achieve in order to prove themselves. This idea stuck with me the most, because Ainsworth turns out to have his own mountain to climb. His is simply made of books.

After a long journey on foot, Ainsworth arrives at the Inn, and I found it quite easy to see him only as an arrogant scholar, as some of the people at the Inn do too. He thinks he is more important than everyone around him due to his position at the Skarrow Library. He is surprised that people do not immediately treat him with the respect he is used to having there. “He had expected his reception here to be a warm one since he had proclaimed himself to be from the Skarrow Library” (47-48). Even his attempt to convince Honey, the innkeeper, to let him interview her, is based on the assumption that she would obviously understand how important his research about the Mount is. When she refuses, he thinks, “How dare she!” (128). At this point, Ainsworth seems to believe that because he comes from an important academic institution, what matters to him should automatically matter to everyone else.

It would be easy now to leave Ainsworth as another arrogant scholar. But Bullen does not let us do that, and Ainsworth’s character development is one of the things I liked the most. She gives us enough time to slowly understand him, without telling us his whole story immediately. Then, our opinion of him changes, like the inhabitants of the inn, we slowly reconsider our first impression. As we learn about his past, especially his unhealthy relationship with Enach, another scholar at the Library, his need for recognition starts to make more sense. He eventually realises himself that he has been waiting for Enach’s approval for too long: “It was only recently […] he realized… he did not like that. Living his life waiting for Enach’s approval” (264). His need to be recognised as intelligent and successful is not just arrogance, it also connects to how he has learned to judge his own worth.

“He realized… he did not like that. Living his life waiting for Enach’s approva“

This is also how Ainsworth’s idea of success starts to look very similar to the adventurers’. He wants to produce important research and, become a respected historian to prove that he is special and worth recognition. The adventurers want to become heroes by conquering the mountain. Both are chasing something that will make other people recognise their value. Neither seems satisfied with just doing something they care about, they also want their achievements to mean something for others. The difference is that Ainsworth’s mountain is academic rather than a literal mountain.

The change in Ainsworth becomes most meaningful when he starts to understand it himself. One of the moments that stayed in my mind the most is when he realises that “it mattered to him that he treat people well,” rather than making sure people knew he was “special. Better. Smarter. Superior.” (208). I think this is one of the most important moments in his development because success is no longer only about what he can achieve academically. The novel does not suddenly make him a completely different person, but it allows him to question the way he has been living and allows us to realise that his arrogance is linked to insecurity, his past, and his desire for approval. Perhaps this is also why the novel needs to be so long. Bullen makes us slow down with Ainsworth, giving us time to watch his idea of success change.

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The Inn offers a very different way of living and idea of success. What I appreciated about the novel is that it does not replace one big goal with another. Ainsworth does not stop caring about his academic work to find something else to achieve. Instead, what becomes important to him, thanks to his stay at the Inn, is quite ordinary. Eating together, talking, helping each other, and having a place where people can stay. At the beginning, Ainsworth does not understand the value of any of this. He is much more interested in what the people at the Inn can give to his research than in getting to know them personally.

Honey, the innkeeper, is important in this change of perspective. She does not seem interested in proving herself to anyone, even though she is constantly surrounded by ambitious adventurers. She is much more concerned with the people around her, maintaining the life she has built at the Inn, and being happy with what she has. This is very different from Ainsworth, who arrives thinking about his future research and his reputation.

And I do not think the novel is saying that ambition itself is bad. Ainsworth is not wrong for caring about his research, I care about my own academic work too. The problem comes when achievements become the way we decide how valuable our lives are. We can care about our work without letting it define how much we are worthy as a person.

I also enjoyed the world-building in the novel. There are many creatures, but I never felt overwhelmed by them. The novel also keeps bringing us back to the Inn, this cozy place at the foot of the dangerous Mount Vengeance, where everyone live simply their lives. For a fantasy story, it is surprising to see, but really interesting to me, that so much of the novel takes place in one place rather than constantly travelling to the next adventure.

The Inn then becomes almost the opposite of Mount Vengeance. The mountain promises the adventurers fame and recognition. If they succeed, other people will see them as heroes. However, the Inn appreciates people for who they are, and for what they have accomplished. It offers a sense of belonging without requiring anyone to prove they deserve it.

Still not everything about the novel surprised me, when Ainsworth learns that another scholar from the Library is coming to the Inn, I already suspected that it would turn out to be Enach. The revelation felt quite predictable. However, this did not ruin the story for me. Especially because I was more interested in Ainsworth’s reaction and development than in the surprise itself.  The whole secondary relationship with Enach did make a part of this plot a bit less exciting than it could have been.

And then I finished the novel… And then I felt like I was still not completely satisfied. I liked the ending, but I also found it a maybe little bit… boring… After spending hundreds of pages reading about Mount Vengeance, dragons, and adventurers, I think I had started to expect a bigger confrontation. At the same time, a huge final battle might have been against almost everything the novel had been doing. I am just saying that it was maybe a bit too little. But the story is about characters learning that they do not have to chase the most spectacular achievement, so perhaps it makes sense that the novel refuses to end with a big event.

Maybe that reaction says something about me as a reader. Again, I am not used to reading cozy fantasy, and a part of me maybe still expected the kind of ending that a more traditional fantasy would have offered me. After 700 pages, I caught myself waiting for a climax in a novel that had spent the whole story questioning big achievements.

Maybe that is what I loved the most about The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance. The adventurers turn away from the mountain, Ainsworth from the version of success he thought he needed, and the novel itself asking the reader to turn away from the expectation that every fantasy story needs someone to reach the top.

I started the novel worried about those 700 pages, thinking it would be too much. Looking back, I needed the novel to take that long for its slow rhythm to make sense to me. I am still not completely sure that its quiet ending worked perfectly for me, but maybe that fits too. In the end The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance does not ask whether its characters can reach the top, it asks whether they need to.