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TeaTimeReads December Pick: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Hello everyone! We can’t wait to discuss our November read Arsenic and Adobo with all of you, but until that time comes we’re so excited to announce our December read, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna! We love this cozy story about found family and can’t wait to share it with all of you.

Here is the full summary for The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches:

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….

Links for The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches: 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 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches: death, abandonment, estranged parents, sibling abuse, memory loss

We hope that you all are doing well and can’t wait to read this one with you all!

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

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!

TeaTimeReads October Pick: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Happy September! We hope that you’re all doing well and that the month is treating you well so far. We’re really excited to announce that our October TeaTimeReads pick will be R.F. Kuang’s Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution — we know that this is a highly anticipated read for many, so we’re really looking forward to reading it with everyone!

Here is the full summary for Babel:

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.

Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?

Babel — a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal response to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell — grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire.

Links for Babel: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace.

Content Warnings for Babel: “period typical” racism, c slur, anti-asian rhetoric, antiblackness, war, gun violence, blood, murder, child abuse/neglect, slavery, colonization, gore, death of a parent, classism, sexism, suicide ideation, xenophobia, grief, hate crime, murder 
As always, we hope that you’ll join us and we’re looking forward to discussion our September pick, The Tea Dragon Society with you all later this month

TeaTimeReads September Pick: The Tea Dragon Society series by Kay O’Neill

Hi friends! We’re so excited to announce that for our September TeaTimeReads pick, we’ll be reading THE TEA DRAGON SOCIETY by Kay O’Niell! With graphic novels being on the shorter side, we decided to read all three books in the series. We can’t wait to read and discuss with you!

Here is the full summary for The Tea Dragon Society:

From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.

After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives—and eventually her own.

Here is the full summary for The Tea Dragon Festival:

Rinn has grown up with the Tea Dragons that inhabit their village, but stumbling across a real dragon turns out to be a different matter entirely! Aedhan is a young dragon who was appointed to protect the village but fell asleep in the forest eighty years ago. With the aid of Rinn’s adventuring uncle Erik and his partner Hesekiel, they investigate the mystery of his enchanted sleep, but Rinn’s real challenge is to help Aedhan come to terms with feeling that he cannot get back the time he has lost.

Here is the full summary for The Tea Dragon Tapestry:

Join Greta and Minette once more for the heartwarming conclusion of the award-winning Tea Dragon series!

Over a year since being entrusted with Ginseng’s care, Greta still can’t chase away the cloud of mourning that hangs over the timid Tea Dragon. As she struggles to create something spectacular enough to impress a master blacksmith in search of an apprentice, she questions the true meaning of crafting, and the true meaning of caring for someone in grief. Meanwhile, Minette receives a surprise package from the monastery where she was once training to be a prophetess. Thrown into confusion about her path in life, the shy and reserved Minette finds that the more she opens her heart to others, the more clearly she can see what was always inside.

Told with the same care and charm as the previous installments of the Tea Dragon series, The Tea Dragon Tapestry welcomes old friends and new into a heartfelt story of purpose, love, and growth.

Links for The Tea Dragon Society: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
Links for The Tea Dragon Festival: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
Links for The Tea Dragon Tapestry: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace.

Content Warnings for The Tea Dragon Society Series: blood, violence, abandonment, injury/injury detail, animal cruelty, animal death, confinement, death, memory loss

We hope that you have a lovely rest of the month and we look forward to reading THE TEA DRAGON SOCIETY in September!

TeaTimeReads August Pick: Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

Hi friends, we hope that you’re having a wonderful July so far and that you’re enjoying The Heartbreak Bakery! We’re thrilled to announce that our TeaTimeReads August pick is Grace D. Li’s debut novel PORTRAIT OF A THIEF!

Here is the full summary for Portrait of a Thief:

Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums; about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.

History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.

Will Chen plans to steal them back.

A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.

His crew is every heist archetype one can imag­ine—or at least, the closest he can get. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.

Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted at­tempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.

Equal parts beautiful, thoughtful, and thrilling, Portrait of a Thief is a cultural heist and an examination of Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary cri­tique of the lingering effects of colonialism. 

Links for Portrait of a Thief: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for Portrait of a Thief: Death of a parent, hospitalization of a grandparent (minor), grief, violence, weapon descriptions 

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace!

We’re big fans of Portrait of a Thief on the blog, so we could not be more excited to take a deep dive into this story and its characters! Enjoy the rest of July and we’ll see you again in August.

TeaTimeReads July Pick: The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta

Hi friends, we hope that the month of June has been treating you well and that you’re enjoying our current read THE CARTOGRAPHERS! We’re so so excited to announce that our TeaTimeReads pick for July will be A.R. Capetta’s THE HEARTBREAK BAKERY! 

Here is the full summary for The Heartbreak Bakery:

Teenage baker Syd sends ripples of heartbreak through Austin’s queer community when a batch of post-being-dumped brownies turns out to be magical—and makes everyone who eats them break up.

“What’s done is done.”

Unless, of course, it was done by my brownies. Then it’s getting undone.

Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.

Links for The Heartbreak Bakery: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound

Content Warnings for The Heartbreak Bakery: descriptions of gender dysphoria, misgendering (non-malicious)

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace!

Have a wonderful rest of the month, and we hope you’ll join us next month in reading THE HEARTBREAK BAKERY!

TeaTimeReads June Pick: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

Hi, everyone! We hope that you’ve been enjoying LIKE A LOVE SONG! We’re looking forward to starting discussion questions soon! Today is the 22nd, which means it’s time for us to announce our June pick for TeaTimeReads. We’re so excited to announce that in June we’ll be reading THE CARTOGRAPHERS by Peng Shepherd! 

Here is the full summary for The Cartographers:

What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence… because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps…

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history. 

Links for The Cartographers: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for The Cartographers: death, murder, gun, estranged parents, grief, fire

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace!

We hope that the rest of May treats you well and that you’ll join us in reading THE CARTOGRAPHERS next month! As always, you can join the Discord here.

TeaTimeReads May Pick: Like a Love Song by Gabriela Martins

Hello, friends! We hope that you’re having a lovely spring so far and that the end of April is treating you well. We’re so excited to announce that our May book club pick is LIKE A LOVE SONG by Gabriela Martins! 

Here is the full summary for Like a Love Song:

Fake boyfriend. Real heartbreak?

Natalie is living her dream: topping the charts and setting records as a Brazilian pop star…until she’s dumped spectacularly on live television. Not only is it humiliating—it could end her career.

Her PR team’s desperate plan? A gorgeous yet oh-so-fake boyfriend. Nati reluctantly agrees, but William is not what she expected. She was hoping for a fierce bad boy—not a soft-hearted British indie film star. While she fights her way back to the top with a sweet and surprisingly swoon-worthy boy on her arm, she starts to fall for William—and realizes that maybe she’s the biggest fake of them all. Can she reclaim her voice and her heart?

Links for Like a Love Song: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound 

Content Warnings for Like a Love Song: mentions of anxiety/panic attacks, death of a parent (dad), child abandonment/estranged parents, mentions of homophobia, mentions of xenophobia / racism

We’ll be doing a loose reading schedule this month, but of course, feel free to read at your own pace!

We’re really looking forward to reading this super sweet story with you all next month!

TeaTimeReads April Pick: Fresh by Margot Wood

Happy Spring, everyone! We hope that you’re enjoying OPHELIA AFTER ALL – we can’t wait to start discussion questions! We’re super excited to announce that our April book club pick will be Margot Wood’s FRESH!

Here is the full summary for Fresh:

A hilarious and vulnerable coming-of-age story about the thrilling new experiences––and missteps––of a girl’s freshman year of college

Some students enter their freshman year of college knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives. Elliot McHugh is not one of those people. But picking a major is the last thing on Elliot’s mind when she’s too busy experiencing all that college has to offer—from dancing all night at off-campus parties, to testing her RA Rose’s patience, to making new friends, to having the best sex one can have on a twin-sized dorm room bed. But she may not be ready for the fallout when reality hits. When the sex she’s having isn’t that great. When finals creep up and smack her right in the face. Or when her roommate’s boyfriend turns out to be the biggest a-hole. Elliot may make epic mistakes, but if she’s honest with herself (and with you, dear reader), she may just find the person she wants to be. And maybe even fall in love in the process . . . Well, maybe. 

Links for Fresh: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for Fresh: drinking, drug use, profanity, sex, and one scene with sexual assault

This month we’ve decided to try some new things that we’re all really excited about! We decided that this month we would try a loose reading schedule, which you can see in the image below. We also thought that since Fresh is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, it would be fun to stream some Emma adaptations (2020 Emma, Emma Approved, Clueless, etc.) as well as some new and fun ways to interact with each other through social media! More information about that will be coming soon, most of which will be detailed in the Discord. 

We’re super excited to read this fun and hilarious retelling! See you in April!

teatimereads April Pick: Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

We’re incredibly stoked to announce our April book for teatimereads — Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers. With a beautifully written coming-of-age story, lyrical storytelling, and witty millennial humor, we couldn’t be more excited that the tea party has chosen Honey Girl for our April pick! 

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

Links for Honey Girl: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | Indie Bound

Content Warnings: discussion and depictions of mental illness, self-harm (scratching skin, nails digging into skin as an anxiety coping mechanism, cutting), past suicide attempt by a side character, anti-Blackness, racism, homophobia, casual alcohol consumption, minor drug use (marijuana), mentions of war, PTSD, past parent death (side character), grief, medical talk, self-destructive behavior, police, amputation (chapter 4) 

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

Happy reading!