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A review by wickeddelights
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I am giving this book 3 Stars because I still got a good amount of enjoyment out of this book, but I feel like this could have used a few more rounds of edits and way more time planning.
It felt like a gender-swapped retelling of Six of Crows where one character was swapped out for an Astarion insert. 🙃
The premise was sooooo promising 😫
Artherian retelling but make it anti-colonization? ❤️Love it.
Vampires? ❤️Hell yes.
Excaliber turned into a gun? ❤️ Super cool.
A Tea shop that turns into a blood bar at night? ❤️ Amazing idea, I was so excited for this part.
But we spent *barely* any time at the tea shop. Yes, Arthie and Jin's motivation for doing what they did was with the shop in mind, but I feel like such a cool setting was totally tossed aside in favor of just under 200 pages of preparation for this plan that once we got down to it felt really rushed at the end.
The romances also felt strangely paced. There was a love-triangle-esque will they-won't-they situation with Arthie/Matteo and Arthie/Laith. The scales tip more towards Laith, things start to happen and then Arthie sends Laith away for obvious reason, but then literally on the same page as Latih leaving after him and Arthie have their moment Arthie walks out of her room and runs into Matteo and two pages later he is caressing her cheek, and she's leaning into it with a low simmer in her belly.
And Jin and Flick were an instant and obvious future pairing. Jin is described in a manner that makes him seem like a ladies man and yet it felt like he was instantly all in on Flick.
I loved how much Jin and Arthie clearly cared about each other though, but the amount of secrets between them felt so odd after how much time they've known each other. I was so glad to see Flick become a part of the family and get the love and respect she deserves as well.
It was an entertaining read, I just think it needed *more* in a lot of places, and I'm interested to see where the sequel takes it.
Also I will just say the coconut reveal at the end absolutely killed me.
It felt like a gender-swapped retelling of Six of Crows where one character was swapped out for an Astarion insert. 🙃
The premise was sooooo promising 😫
Artherian retelling but make it anti-colonization? ❤️Love it.
Vampires? ❤️Hell yes.
Excaliber turned into a gun? ❤️ Super cool.
A Tea shop that turns into a blood bar at night? ❤️ Amazing idea, I was so excited for this part.
But we spent *barely* any time at the tea shop. Yes, Arthie and Jin's motivation for doing what they did was with the shop in mind, but I feel like such a cool setting was totally tossed aside in favor of just under 200 pages of preparation for this plan that once we got down to it felt really rushed at the end.
The romances also felt strangely paced. There was a love-triangle-esque will they-won't-they situation with Arthie/Matteo and Arthie/Laith. The scales tip more towards Laith, things start to happen and then Arthie sends Laith away for obvious reason, but then literally on the same page as Latih leaving after him and Arthie have their moment Arthie walks out of her room and runs into Matteo and two pages later he is caressing her cheek, and she's leaning into it with a low simmer in her belly.
And Jin and Flick were an instant and obvious future pairing. Jin is described in a manner that makes him seem like a ladies man and yet it felt like he was instantly all in on Flick.
I loved how much Jin and Arthie clearly cared about each other though, but the amount of secrets between them felt so odd after how much time they've known each other. I was so glad to see Flick become a part of the family and get the love and respect she deserves as well.
It was an entertaining read, I just think it needed *more* in a lot of places, and I'm interested to see where the sequel takes it.
Also I will just say the coconut reveal at the end absolutely killed me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation