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teatimelit

Review: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

November 4, 2022


As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules…with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos “pretending” to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.

But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.

As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn’t the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for…. 

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Filed in: cossette, posts, reviews • by @teatimelit •

Review: The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake

November 2, 2022

Six magicians were presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.

Five are now members of the Society.

Two paths lay before them.

All must pick a side.

Alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken, and The Society of Alexandrians will be revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way.

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Filed in: caitlyn, posts, reviews • by caitlyn @ teatimelit •

Wrap Up: October 2022

October 31, 2022

Happy Halloween and end of the month, everyone! We hope that you’re all doing well and staying safe. As you know, with the end of the month comes our monthly wrap up! Check it out to see what we enjoyed this month!

This month Caitlyn read 13 books, and Cossette read 25 books.

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Filed in: all, monthly wrap up, posts • by caitlyn @ teatimelit •

Book Recommendations Based Off Of Your Favorite Song From Midnights

October 28, 2022

Happy Friday! I haven’t listened to anything but Taylor Swift’s Midnights since it came out — it truly is for the insomniac girlies like me. Since I couldn’t sleep the night it was released, I figured it’d be fun to do a book recs post based on your favorite songs on Midnights!

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Filed in: book recs, cossette, posts • by @teatimelit •

Annotate with Me: Romeo and Juliet

October 26, 2022

Hi friends! Welcome back to another Annotate with Me post! As we know, I am a Shakespeare fan first and human second, so today’s post is focused on one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays — Romeo and Juliet.

Something that particularly motivated me to work on this post is that I see so many people say that the only reason why they don’t read Shakespeare is that they don’t really understand the language and that makes them feel inferior or unintelligent. That truly breaks my heart! I started reading Shakespeare when I was around fourteen, and I loved it but didn’t fully understand it. Then in college, as a theatre major, we had an entire class on Shakespeare, and my love kind of turned into an obsession because I was able to really understand and dissect his works. That is to say: no one is “not smart enough” to understand Shakespeare, you just need to spend a little more time learning how to read Shakespeare.

Shakespeare wrote for the masses, and I feel strongly that everyone should be exposed to his writing because he wrote about the spectrum of human emotion. I personally have learned so much through reading Shakespeare and that is thanks to the teachers I had who helped me understand him. While I am in no way a Shakespeare expert, I do think that I have a good grasp of his works and I would love to help others develop a love for him as well. And, to be 100% transparent I have SparkNotes and CliffsNotes open while I read as it usually helps me process my thoughts, and remember what happens in which scenes, since in the case of Romeo and Juliet, I’ve read it so many times that sometimes the minute details blend together.

So, all that being said, whether you love Shakespeare or not, I hope you enjoy hearing my thoughts, observations, and analysis on one of my all-time favorite stories, Romeo and Juliet. 

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Filed in: annotations, caitlyn, posts • by caitlyn @ teatimelit •

Review: If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

October 21, 2022

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible.

When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.

But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

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Filed in: cossette, posts, reviews • by @teatimelit •

Review: Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala

October 19, 2022

When her long lost cousin comes back to town just in time for the holidays, Lila Macapagal knows that big trouble can’t be far behind in this new mystery by Mia P. Manansala, author of Arsenic and Adobo.

It’s Christmastime in Shady Palms, but things are far from jolly for Lila Macapagal. Sure, her new business, The Brew-ha Cafe, is looking to turn a profit in its first year. And yes, she’s taken the first step in a new romance with her good friend, Jae Park. But her cousin Ronnie is back in town after ghosting the family fifteen years ago, claiming that his recent purchase of a local winery shows that he’s back on his feet and ready to give back to the Shady Palms community. Tita Rosie is thrilled with the return of her prodigal son, but Lila knows that wherever Ronnie goes, trouble follows.

She’s soon proven right when Ronnie is accused of murder, and secrets and rumors surrounding her shady cousin and those involved with the winery start piling up. Now Lila has to put away years of resentment and distrust to prove her cousin’s innocence. He may be a jerk, but he’s still family. And there’s no way her flesh and blood could actually be a murderer…right?

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Filed in: caitlyn, posts, reviews • by caitlyn @ teatimelit •

TeaTimeReads November Pick: Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

October 15, 2022

Hi friends, we hope that you’re all doing well and enjoying our October pick Babel! We’re so excited to announce that our November pick will be Mia P. Manasala’s Arsenic and Adobo! 

Here is the full summary for Arsenic and Adobo:

The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer….

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She’s tasked with saving her Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

With the cops treating her like she’s the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila’s left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block…

Links for Arsenic and Adobo: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

You can see our loose reading schedule below, but as always, feel free to read at your own pace.

Content Warnings for Arsenic and Adobo: Murder, death, poisoning, evidence planting, police intimidation, police encounters, drug use, fatphobia, racism, physical assault, hospitals, domestic violence (implied), discussion of food

We’re really looking forward to reading this cozy mystery with all of you, and can’t wait to hear what you think!

Filed in: all, posts, tea time: announcement, teatimereads • by @teatimelit •

Spotlight: Alone with You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

October 14, 2022

CHICAGO, SOMETIME—Two people meet in the armory of the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. After their meeting, those things do not change. Everything else, however, is slightly different. Both obsessive, eccentric personalities, Aldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan struggle to be without each other from the moment they meet. The truth—that he is a clinically depressed, anti-social theoretician and she is a manipulative liar with a history of self-sabotage—means the deeper they fall in love, the more troubling their reliance on each other becomes. An intimate study of time and space, ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER is a fantasy writer’s magicless glimpse into the nature of love, what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken

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Filed in: cossette, posts, spotlight • by @teatimelit •

Review: Stolen City by Elisa A. Bonnin

October 12, 2022

Twin thieves attempt to pull off a daring heist in Stolen City, the sophomore fantasy novel from Dauntless author Elisa A. Bonnin.

The city of Leithon is under Imperial occupation and Arian Athensor has made it her playground.

In stealing magical artifacts for the Resistance, bounding over rooftops to evade Imperial soldiers, and establishing herself as the darling thief of the underground, Arian lives a life wrapped in danger and trained towards survival. She’ll steal anything for the right price, and if she runs fast enough, she can almost escape the fact that her mother is dead, her father is missing, and her brother, Liam, is tamping down a wealth of power in a city that has outlawed magic.

But then the mysterious Cavar comes to town with a job for the twins: to steal an artifact capable of ripping the souls from the living–the same artifact that used to hang around the neck of Arian’s mother. Suddenly, her past is no longer buried under adrenaline but intimately tied to the mission at hand, and Arian must face her guilt and pain head-on in order to pull off the heist.

As Arian and Cavar infiltrate the strongest fortress in Leithon and Liam joins the Resistance as their resident mage, the twins find themselves embroiled in court politics and family secrets, and the mission becomes more than just another artifact theft. The target is now the Imperial rule, and Arian will go to any length necessary to steal her city back.

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Filed in: caitlyn, posts, reviews • by caitlyn @ teatimelit •

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