Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea (Tomes & Tea #1)
written by Rebecca Thorne
narrated by Jessica Threet
My Rating: 3 stars
Genre: Cozy Fantasy Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: f/f
Blurb:
In the tradition of Legends & Lattes, comes a cozy fantasy steeped in sapphic romance about one of the Queen’s private guards and a powerful mage who want to open a bookshop and live happily ever after…if only the world would let them.All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters… all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.
But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility–all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.
What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other… and the world.
My Review
This book has been on my wishlist for a while and I was really looking forward to reading this one. Eventually I decided to get it in audiobook and started listening to it. I really love the cozy fantasy genre and this one sounded great. Sadly I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped, there were parts that I really liked and other parts I struggled with.
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea had a great set-up. Guard Rayna is in love with the most powerful mage in existence Kianthe. When Rayna realizes how little she matters to the vicious queen she serves, she takes Kianthe up on her offer to run away and start a new life together. They end up starting a cozy book and tea shop in a small town on the edge of dragon country. Despite settling in their new cozy life, they have to deal with some more serious treats, the dragons keep attacking their new hometown. And the Queen isn’t known to be generous and will surely have people looking for Rayna as deserting from the queen’s guard is considered treason.
I really liked the first few chapters and then the pace slowed down and I was just bored. Really struggled to continue, but gave it some more time and listened in shorter bursts and then it got better again and then a while later I hit a patch again that I felt was boring. I don’t know why this happened as I love this genre and I usually look for books reviewers call boring as I will usually enjoy them, but somehow this one didn’t quite work for me. There were parts that were exciting and fun and kept my attention and then other parts that just felt boring and slow to me.
I like the blend between cozy elements with more serious or heavier topics and have read multiple series that I loved that handled this blend really well, but somehow here it didn’t quite work for me. I think this is mostly due to me not being very invested or caring about the dragon or queen plot line. It also didn’t really feel the high stakes as it had this everything will be okay vibe and despite this being serious troubles it just didn’t really feel like that. Usually I would think this is a good thing, but it just didn’t really work for me here. There was quite a chunk dedicated to each issue and I just wasn’t as invested. I feel like both plot lines took up too much space and not enough at the same time, like with more space they could’ve been expanded and fleshed out more or just be relegated even more to the sideline with less page time.
My favorite part of this book is probably the relationship between Rayna and Kianthe. I loved the fact they are already an established couple and now they run away together and have to figure out how to actually have a relationship and live with each other every day instead of brief visits. I really liked seeing them figure things out. There are moments they struggle and have to talk things through and I just found this so realistic. I really enjoyed reading about them and seeing their relationship develop and them figure out how to be together. They both have their own struggles, Rayna was thought to see everything as needing to be earned and she doesn’t think she has earned this while Kianthe deals with anxiety and panic attacks.
Despite these character both having their own personality and struggles for the first part of the book I had the hardest time remembering who was who. I think this is mostly due to the writing voice and them sounding very similar. A lot of scenes also has the two of them together and not a lot of internal thoughts and emotions, so it wasn’t as obvious whose point of view it was from that either.
The narrator for the book was great and I really liked how she gave both of them their own voice. I also liked the chuckles, laughs and coughs she added now and then. I never read a book with that before, but it felt natural here.
The world building is also an element I would’ve liked a bit more about. There’s all this set up with the different countries, political factions, rulers and then there are the dragons and the mages. Lots of interesting elements and they do get touched upon, but not really fleshed out as much. I also wasn’t a big fan of Kianthe being the most powerful mage of all time and was a bit confused about how this all worked and why their stone choose a mage for this purpose and only one. Just lots of little things I wanted to know more about.
To summarize: This book has such a great set up and ideas, but for me it just didn’t really work out. Some parts of the book were great and I really enjoyed them and then other parts felt very slow and boring to me. I liked the set up with the two women already being already in a committed relationship and now starting a new life together. I also thought the world building had some interesting elements and there is some danger going on as well. Sadly the danger plot lines involving the queen and the dragons didn’t really capture my attention and I never really felt the danger of the threats. The world building has interesting elements, but never fully gets fleshed out. I really liked reading about Rayna and Kianthe and seeing their relationship grow deeper as they now live together and have to work through some of their struggles together. I struggled at the start to remember who was who and even later in the book I often didn’t know whose point of view the chapter was in as they both sound similar in terms of writing voice. The narrator was really good and did the different voices well and I thought the occasional chuckle, laugh or cough worked well. I just feel sad I didn’t enjoy this one more.
The uneven engagement sounds about right if you couldn’t buy into the conflict threats so you couldn’t feel a rise in tension. Glad the situation and relationship was good for you.
It was a shame the I didn’t really feel the threats, that made it hard to feel as invested about those plot lines. I am sad I didn’t enjoy it more as the parts I did like were good, but the parts that didn’t work for me were plenty too.