teatimelit

Interview with Kyla Zhao: Author of The Fraud Squad

Hi, hello friends!  I’m so excited to share that Kyla Zhao, author of The Fraud Squad is our latest tea party guest! I’ve been hyped for The Fraud Squad ever since I heard about a The Devil Wears Prada meets Inventing Anna meets Crazy Rich Asians book, and loved the chance to pick Kyla’s brain a little more! 

For as long as she can remember, Samantha Song has dreamed of writing for a high-society magazine—and she’d do anything to get there. But the constant struggle to help her mom make ends meet and her low social status make her dream feel like a distant fantasy.

Now, Sam finds herself working at a drab PR firm. The closest she’ll get to that life is living vicariously through her socialite coworker and friend, Anya Chen. Then she meets Timothy Kingston: the disillusioned son of one of Singapore’s elite families—and Sam’s one chance at infiltrating the high society world to which she desperately wants to belong.

To Sam’s surprise, Tim and Anya both agree to help her make a name for herself on Singapore’s socialite scene. The borrowed designer clothes and plus-ones to every glamorous event can only get her so far; the rest is on Sam, and she’s determined to make an impression on the editor-in-chief of Singapore’s poshest magazine. But the deeper Sam wades into this fraud, the more she fears being exposed—especially with a mysterious gossip columnist on the prowl for dirt—forcing her to reconcile her pretense with who she really is before she loses it all. 

Links for The Fraud Squad: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Read more

Blog Tour + Review: The Accidental Pinup by Danielle Jackson

Rival photographers are forced to collaborate on a body-positive lingerie campaign, but they might have to readjust their focus when sparks fly.

Photographer Cassie Harris loves her job—her company Buxom Boudoir makes people look beautiful and feel empowered with her modern twist on classic pinup photography. Cassie’s best friend, Dana, is about to launch her own dangerously dreamy lingerie line and wants Cassie to shoot and direct the career-changing national campaign. But company politics and Dana’s complicated pregnancy interfere, and Cassie finds herself—a proud plus size Black woman—not behind the camera but in front of it.

Though she’s never modeled herself, Cassie’s pretty sure she can handle the sheer underwear and caution tape bralettes. She’s not sure she can work so intimately with the chosen photographer, her long-time competitor in the Chicago photography scene, Reid Montgomery. Their chemistry is undeniable on set, however, and feelings can develop faster than film… 

Read more

Blog Tour and ARC Review: Dauntless by Elisa A. Bonnin

“Be dauntless, for the hopes of the People rest in you.” 

Seri’s world is defined by very clear rules: The beasts prowl the forest paths and hunt the People. The valiant explore the unknown world, kill the beasts, and gain strength from the armor they make from them. As an assistant to Eshai Unbroken, a young valor commander with a near-mythical reputation, Seri has seen first-hand the struggle to keep the beasts at bay and ensure the safety of the spreading trees where the People make their homes. That was how it always had been, and how it always would be. Until the day Seri encounters Tsana. 

Tsana is, impossibly, a stranger from the unknown world who can communicate with the beasts – a fact that makes Seri begin to doubt everything she’s ever been taught. As Seri and Tsana grow closer, their worlds begin to collide, with deadly consequences. Somehow, with the world on the brink of war, Seri will have to find a way to make peace.  

Read more

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.

Announcement: July Hiatus

Hi, hello everyone! 

We hope you’ve been having a great year so far. We wanted to do a quick announcement to say that teatimelit is going on a quick hiatus! Our hiatus will be from July 1st to July 15th, after which we will continue posting as normal! You can still contact us via our contact form, or our Twitter @teatimelits! 


Further to this notice, Mary will be taking a leave of absence from posting on the blog effective immediately. She will resume posting again in November, but you can still follow along with her reads on Twitter (@bookswithmary), Instagram (@bookswithmary) and Goodreads (maryreading). 

Our book club, tea time reads, will still go on as normal! 

Have a lovely rest of your month! 

Wrap Up: June 2022

Hi, hello friends and welcome to another monthly wrap up! All of us here at teatimelit are truly baffled that we are already halfway through the year – honestly, where has the time gone? But, halfway through the year means we have read some pretty amazing books, so keep reading to see what we picked up in June! 

This month Caitlyn read 23 books, Cossette read 22 books, and Mary read 5 books. 

Read more

Let’s Talk: My Favorite Reads of 2022 Part 1

Hi besties! Can you believe we’re at the end of June? I truly cannot. I know I say it all the time, but time really is just a construct isn’t it? I hope that the first half of the year has treated you well and that the second half has many magical things coming your way!

With the first half of the year coming to a close, you know what it’s time for. It’s time for the first part of my Favorite Reads of 2022 post! I love doing these each year because it’s so fun to take a look at all the books I’ve read so far and highlight my favorites. As of the end of June, I’ve read 138 books, and as you can expect, with a number like that it was a little tricky to narrow this list down to the 16 books that I’m featuring.

Y’all know the drill — no rereads are listed here, all of these books are ones that I read for the first time this year, so that you don’t hear me once again go on and on about my love for certain books (iykyk). 

As always, I have done my best to list trigger warnings based on my own personal notes, trigger warnings from other reviews and what is listed on websites like Book Trigger Warnings and Trigger Warning Database if needed. That being said, there may be things that I have forgotten and if so I apologize! If you’ve read any of these books and notice that I’m missing some triggers, please let me know so that I can update the trigger lists!

✩ indicates an ARC / Read as an ARC

Read more

Let’s Talk: My Current and Recent Reads

Happy Wednesday, my friends! I hope that the week has been treating you well so far!

Work has been really busy lately, so I’ve been reading at a much slower pace than usual. However, I was lucky enough to receive ARCs of two of my most anticipated reads of 2022, Chloe Gong’s Foul Lady Fortune and Elisa A. Bonnin’s Dauntless!

I’ve been sneaking in all the reading time I can manage while also juggling work and trying to maintain a somewhat healthy sleep schedule, and I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit about each book and share some of my spoiler-free thoughts!

Read more

Review: Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.

When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.

Read more