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Teatimereads January Pick: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

Hello everyone! As 2021 comes to a close and the new year begins, we want to say a big thank you to everyone who has joined us on our journey thus far! We’re so excited to be going into our second year of teatimereads and we’re thrilled to announce that our first book of 2022 will be DAUGHTER OF THE MOON GODDESS by Sue Lynn Tan!

Here is the full summary for Daughter of the Moon Goddess:

A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind.

Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor’s son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince.

To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies. But when treachery looms and forbidden magic threatens the kingdom, she must challenge the ruthless Celestial Emperor for her dream—striking a dangerous bargain in which she is torn between losing all she loves or plunging the realm into chaos.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess begins an enchanting, romantic duology which weaves ancient Chinese mythology into a sweeping adventure of immortals and magic—where love vies with honor, dreams are fraught with betrayal, and hope emerges triumphant.

Links for Daughter of the Moon Goddess: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for Daughter of the Moon Goddess: Death, gore, violence, blood, fire, confinement, torture, kidnapping, grief, sexual harassment 

We’re wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season and we’re looking forward to continuing to connect with you all in the new year!

Teatimereads December Pick: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Hello friends! It’s hard to believe that we’re already near the end of November. As the month is coming to a close, it’s time for us to announce the December teatimereads pick, and we’re so excited to tell you all that we’ll be reading Tracy Deonn’s LEGENDBORN!

Here is the full summary for Legendborn:

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.

And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.

The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.

She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

Links for Legendborn: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound 

Content Warnings for Legendborn: Death of a parent and traumatic grief/flashbacks, alcohol consumption, mind control/memory manipulation, racist macro and microaggressions, emesis (vomiting), blood, mild gore, combat violence, mention(s) of: physical abuse, racist violence, sexual violence.

We’re so excited to read this magical story with everyone and are so excited to hear your thoughts on Legenborn! Have a wonderful rest of November, and we can’t wait to start reading with you all!

Teatimereads November Pick: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Hi everyone! It’s that time again! Time for another teatimereads announcement. We’re so excited to announce that our November book will be BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. We can’t wait to read this book with you. We hope you’re as excited as we are!

Here is the full summary for Before the Coffee Gets Cold:

What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Links for Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for Before the Coffee Gets Cold: hospitalization, injury, pregnancy, pregnancy complications, death of a parent. health issues, alzheimer’s, grief, mentions of depression, mentions of anxiety, breakup

We hope that the rest of your October is wonderful and we can’t wait to read and discuss Before the Coffee Gets Cold with you all in November!

teatimereads October Pick: XOXO by Axie Oh

Hi, friends and welcome to another teatimereads announcement! September was a busy month for us here, but we’re so excited to be announcing our October book! Without further adieu, we’re so thrilled to announce that the October book will be XOXO by Axie Oh. 

Here’s the full synopsis for XOXO:

Cello prodigy Jenny has one goal: to get into a prestigious music conservatory. When she meets mysterious, handsome Jaewoo in her uncle’s Los Angeles karaoke bar, it’s clear he’s the kind of boy who would uproot her careful plans. But in a moment of spontaneity, she allows him to pull her out of her comfort zone for one unforgettable night of adventure…before he disappears without a word.

Three months later, when Jenny and her mother arrive in South Korea to take care of her ailing grandmother, she’s shocked to discover that Jaewoo is a student at the same elite arts academy where she’s enrolled for the semester. And he’s not just any student. He’s a member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world—and he’s strictly forbidden from dating.

When a relationship means throwing Jenny’s life off the path she’s spent years mapping out, she’ll have to decide once and for all just how much she’s willing to risk for love. 

Links for XOXO: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for XOXO: Cancer, medical content, emergency procedure, hospitals, bullying, death of a parent, drug use 

We can’t wait to get reading with you all, and discuss XOXO at the end of the month. Happy reading! 

teatimereads September Pick: Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado & This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

Hi, hello friends! We hope you had a wonderful August, and September continues on being lovely. We’re so excited to announce that the tea party has a tie for 2 books this month, so we will be splitting our time between two books. The two books selected this month are FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA by Crystal Maldonado and THIS POISON HEART by Kalynn Bayron. The tea party will be reading FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA from September 1st through September 15th, and THIS POISON HEART from September 16th through the end of the month. We are so happy that these two books are our September reads, and we hope you are too!

FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA is one of Caitlyn’s favourite books of the year, so we are very excited to be reading it alongside the tea party.

Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.

Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

Links for Fat Chance, Charlie Vega: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | IndieBound | Bookshop

Content Warnings for Fat Chance, Charlie Vega: Fataphobia, mentioned death of a parent, mentions of sex, underage drinking (chapter 13), racism, a strained relationship with a parent, diet culture, emotional abuse + manipulation

Our second book of the month is THIS POISON HEART by Kalynn Bayron! This book is fun, exciting, and will definitely fill your fantasy needs. We are so excited to be reading it alongside the tea party in the second half of September! 

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined–it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri’s unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her. 

Links for This Poison Heart: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for This Poison Heart: brief depictions of grief, mentions of adoption, murder, death of a parent, blood and gore, decapitation, dismemberment, strong language

We hope you enjoy reading along with us this month, and we cannot wait to start discussing with you all! Happy reading!

teatimereads August pick: The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Hi, hello everyone and welcome back to another teatimereads announcement! This month, we are so excited that the tea party attendees have chosen to read THE DEAD AND THE DARK by Courtney Gould. Releasing on the 3rd of August, this book is delightfully unsettling and a bit scary, so we cannot wait to read something that matches the vibes as the weather begins to cool down. 

Here’s all you need to know about the book:

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won’t stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV’s ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there’s more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.

Links for The Dead and the Dark: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings: blood, violence, murder, attempted murder, drowning, funeral, grief, death of a main character, homophobia, homophobic language, hate crimes, police, child death, claustrophobia (buried alive), mentions of adoption

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

Happy reading! 

teatimereads July pick: The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

Hi, hello friends! We can’t believe half of the year is gone already, but we’re super excited to be bringing you our July pick. The tea party attendees have chosen The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He for this month’s pick. We cannot wait to be reading this with everyone, we just know it’ll be a great read for the month of July! 

Here’s a little bit more information about The Ones We’re Meant to Find: 

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.

Links for The Ones We’re Meant to Find: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound

Content Warnings: Parental death, assault (choking), death, suicide, drowning, terminal illness, natural disasters, blood mention, minor gore, post-apocalyptic themes, large-scale natural disasters, mass casualties. 

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

Happy reading! 

teatimereads June Picks: One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston & Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Hi, hello friends! We’re super excited to be bringing you another month of teatimereads. The books in June were just too good, our tea party attendees chose 2 books to read this month! That means double the fun for all the participants of teatimereads. The two books chosen this month are One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston and Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. The tea party will be reading One Last Stop from June 1 – June 15 and Ace of Spades from June 16 — June 30. We’re so incredibly excited for this month, and we hope you are too! 

One Last Stop is one of our most anticipated books for the year, so we’re super excited to be reading it with everyone!

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Links for One Last Stop: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound 

Content Warnings for One Last Stop: mentions of death (grandparent, other relative) in chapters 11 & 16, brief allusion to/mentions of fire + hate crime (Upstairs Lounge Fire) in ch 11, mentions of a car crash in chapter 16, mentions of addiction/alcoholism, police violence, homophobic violence and hate speech, childhood neglect, racism, arson, drinking, light drug use (weed), semi-public sex, exploration of depression and anxiety, memory loss and cognitive issues, familial estrangement, familial death, grief, missing persons, implied PTSD

Ace of Spades is a new favourite for Cossette, so we’re super stoked to be sharing this book with the tea party attendees! 

Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light. Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Head girl Chiamaka isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they’re planning much more than a high-school game…

Links for Ace of Spades: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound

Content Warnings for Ace of Spades:   racism, homophobia, bullying, blood, alcohol consumption, car accident, racist slurs, stalking, emotional abuse, panic attacks, anxiety, outing of queer characters, suicide ideation , suicide attempt, death of parent, gun violence, murder, toxic relationship, sexism, forced institutionalisation, drug use, police encounter/involvement, incarceration, mentions of death penalty, revenge porn.

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

Happy reading! 

teatimereads: An Announcement

Hi friends! as a mod team, we weren’t aware of how much fatphobia is in The House in the Cerulean Sea, nor did we realize that it was based off of “The Sixties Scoop”, where the Canadian government removed Indigenous children from their homes and placed them with unrelated white, middle-class families (more information here).  

For those unsure on how this book was chosen, each month the tea party attendees suggest & vote for a book they want to read. The suggestion came from a tea party attendee, and we did not think to properly research and look into the chosen book before announcing that, and for that we are deeply sorry. In the future, we promise to do a better job of vetting all suggestions. This book does not align with our morals, or the morals of our book club, which is why we have decided to pull The House in the Cerulean Sea as our teatimereads may pick.

We want to explicitly state that we do not condone fatphobia, and while we had been made aware of it as a trigger warning, we were not aware just how much of a role it played throughout the novel. 

We sincerely apologise for any harm this may have caused our tea party members. 

We recommend the following books to learn more about The Sixties Scoop:

  • Intimate Integration: A History of the Sixties Scoop and the Colonization of Indigenous Kinship by Allyson D. Stevenson
  • Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised somewhere else): A 60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home by Colleen Cardinal
  • Behind the Smile: A Survivor of the Metis Sixties Scoop
  • No Quiet Place: Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements by Edwin C. Kimelman

To show your support for the Indigenous community, and support the efforts to keep families together, we recommend donating to The Caring Society. Furthermore, this resource has a comprehensive list of Indigenous charities you can donate to as well.

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!