The Greatest Pub in the Multiverse (Steuernagel)

The Greatest Pub in the Multiverse
Herman Steuernagel (2025)

[AUDIOBOOK]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I listened to this book in March, I believe, but apparently, I forgot to review it. I don't even have a draft file.

This is a sequel to The Bartender Between Worlds and is more of what I expected (or wanted?) in the first book. And in many ways, this is better than the first book.

The book opens with James, a computer game designer, going home from the US to the UK because his father died. His latest endeavor fell through, so he has some time. His father and late mother owned an old pub, which has been left to James. Due to the terms of the will, he can't sell it for at least a year. He and his sister give it a go.

While searching in the storeroom, they discover a portal to another world, which has been closed off for 20 years. And not just anywhere in that world, but to a pub called the Pints and Portals. Something about the key that James had opened the P∧P to other realms as well.

It's here that we run into Moira again, and she still have the demon box. They get things going. Moira has a problem that James resembles her James, who now hates her and would hunt her down for being magical. At the same time, she's falling for this James and worried about his reaction were he to find out her past of hunting down magical creatures.

I wish I wrote more of this down while it was fresh in my mind. I enjoyed the book, but it got a little confusing with the different POV chapters (this doesn't usually bother me) and sometimes I'd forget which bar that they were in. I did think it was a great way to expand the universe of the first book, which you don't actually need to read to read this own (but it will have spoilers for book 1, naturally)

If the library ever got the ebooks, I might reread these.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.