teatimelit

Interview with Dylan Madeley

Hello tea party attendees! Today, we have author Dylan Madeley joining the tea party to tell us about his new book Prince Ewald the Brave!

“No, father. You have gotten your way for too long. This ends here.”

Meet the Kenderleys, the wealthiest and most powerful family in the world.

The youngest, Prince Bonifaz, takes his lessons and trusts no one. The middle child, Princess Isabel, sneaks away to a secret regency of her own making. Their mother, Queen Dulcibella, watches out for her children just as readily as she watches over them. Their father, King Jonnecht, is a capricious tyrant who hopes to control his family as strictly as he does the largest empire, and his violent rage threatens all under his rule.

Then there’s Prince Ewald, eldest and heir to the throne. No one is more aware of the threat his father poses to everyone. No one has better legal standing to do anything about it. How can he save everyone he loves while upholding his mother’s kind values? He must learn the lessons required to be the best regent, choose allies wisely and earn their trust, and enact a thoughtful and detailed plan.

And even if he succeeds in all that, can one who draws the line and conducts a plan with honour defeat one whose rage, selfishness, and deceit know no bounds?

Can Prince Ewald stop his father?

This is a stand-alone prequel to The Gift-Knight Trilogy.

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Blog Tour + Review: The Ivies by Alexa Donne

Everyone knows the Ivies: the most coveted universities in the United States. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. I would know. I’m one of them. We disrupt class ranks, club leaderships, and academic competitions…among other things. We improve our own odds by decreasing the fortunes of others. Because hyper-elite competitive college admissions is serious business. And in some cases, it’s deadly.

Alexa Donne delivers a nail-biting and timely thriller about teens who will stop at nothing to get into the college of their dreams. Too bad no one told them murder isn’t an extracurricular.

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Review: Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson

Two girls. One night. Zero phones.

Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?

Well. Kind of a lot?

They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.

Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally discover what they really want for their future.

That is, assuming they can make it to Grand Central before the clock strikes midnight.

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Blog Tour + Review: The Other Side of Perfect by Mariko Turk

Content Warning: protagonist is dealing with a lot of anger and some depression, various experiences of racism

Alina Keeler was destined to dance, but then a terrifying fall shatters her leg — and her dreams of a professional ballet career along with it.

After a summer healing (translation: eating vast amounts of Cool Ranch Doritos and binging ballet videos on YouTube), she is forced to trade her pre-professional dance classes for normal high school, where she reluctantly joins the school musical. However, rehearsals offer more than she expected — namely Jude, her annoyingly attractive castmate she just might be falling for.

But to move forward, Alina must make peace with her past and face the racism she experienced in the dance industry. She wonders what it means to yearn for ballet — something so beautiful, yet so broken. And as broken as she feels, can she ever open her heart to someone else?

Touching, romantic, and peppered with humor, this debut novel explores the tenuousness of perfectionism, the possibilities of change, and the importance of raising your voice.

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Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.

As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.

The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

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Wrap Up: April 2021

Happy end of April! This was a pretty good reading month for us overall, and we’ve all read some wonderful books! We’re so excited to continue out reading into next month, and we can’t wait to see what wonderful posts our fellow bloggers produce. We recently announced our teatimereads book for May, and we’re so excited to read The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. Be sure to let us know below what your favourite books of the month are, and we hope you have a safe and productive May!


This month Caitlyn read 17 books, Cossette read 17 books, and Mary read 9 books.

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Spotlight: Caitlyn’s Favorite Shakespeare Plays

Well, with April coming to a close as does my William Shakespeare month (though am I ever not talking about Shakespeare?). I’ve really loved focusing on Shakespeare and his works this month. As I said at the beginning of the month, Shakespeare’s works have been so influential to so many, so it’s been awesome to check out works that have been modeled after his as well as reading his works.


Originally my goal was to read all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays by the end of this month, but alas due to just life in general that has not happened. As of now, I’ve read 11 plays, so my goal is to now finish them by June. We’ll see how that goes. While I haven’t read/reread all of his works before writing this post, I do know which plays are my favorites because they’re the ones I always gravitate to and ones that mean a lot to me.

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Review: Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George

Six teenagers’ lives intertwine during one thrilling summer full of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals in this sparkling retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

After she gets kicked out of boarding school, seventeen-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island. But Hey Nonny Nonny is more than just a rundown old mansion. Beatrice’s cousin, Hero, runs a struggling speakeasy out of the basement—one that might not survive the summer. Along with Prince, a poor young man determined to prove his worth; his brother John, a dark and dangerous agent of the local mob; Benedick, a handsome trust-fund kid trying to become a writer; and Maggie, a beautiful and talented singer; Beatrice and Hero throw all their efforts into planning a massive party to save the speakeasy. Despite all their worries, the summer is beautiful, love is in the air, and Beatrice and Benedick are caught up in a romantic battle of wits that their friends might be quietly orchestrating in the background.

Hilariously clever and utterly charming, McKelle George’s debut novel is full of intrigue and 1920s charm. For fans of Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins, and Anna Godbersen.

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TEATIMEREADS MAY PICK: THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA BY TJ KLUNE

Hi, hello everyone! We are super excited to be announcing our May book today! We cannot believe it’s going to be May already, but we hope the year has been kind to you so far. We’re happy to announce that the tea party guests chose The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune as our May book! We’re so incredibly excited to be reading this with everyone next month! 

A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

Links for The House in the Cerulean Sea: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound

Content Warnings: Abuse (mentioned), anxiety (trauma-related), bigotry, body shaming, bullying, child abuse (backstory), fatphobia (internalised), homophobia, microagressions, queerphobia, violence (against children)

To find out more about teatimereads please click here. You can also join the server by accessing this link! 

Happy reading! 

Spotlight: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

As we know, this month I am celebrating all things Shakespeare in honor of the Bard’s birth/death month. Today, I’ll be discussing my favorite book, If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio.

Note that this post does include major spoilers, so if you haven’t read If We Were Villains yet and don’t want to be spoiled, check out the book before you read this post.

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