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ARC Review: One for All by Lillie Lainoff

An OwnVoices, gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.

Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion.

Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for a new kind of Musketeer: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a swordfight.

With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive—and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.

This debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love.

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 ARC Review: Kamila Knows Best by Farah Heron

Kamila Hussain’s life might not be perfect, but, whew, it’s close. She lives a life of comfort, filled with her elaborate Bollywood movie parties, a dog with more Instagram followers than most reality stars, a job she loves, and an endless array of friends who clearly need her help finding love. In fact, Kamila is so busy with her friends’ love lives, she’s hardly given any thought to her own . . .

Fortunately, Kamila has Rohan Nasser. A longtime friend of the family, he’s hugely successful, with the deliciously lean, firm body of a rock climber. Only lately, Kamila’s “harmless flirting” with Rohan is making her insides do a little bhangra dance.

But between planning the local shelter’s puppy prom, throwing a huge work event, and proving to everyone that she’s got it all figured out, Kamila isn’t letting herself get distracted—until her secret nemesis returns to town with an eye for Rohan. Suddenly, it seems like the more Kamila tries to plan, the more things are starting to unravel—and her perfectly ordered life is about to be turned upside down.

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Review: A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

From debut author Stacy Willingham comes a masterfully done, lyrical thriller, certain to be the launch of an amazing career. A Flicker in the Dark is eerily compelling to the very last page.

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren’t really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer? 

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Let’s Talk: Cossette’s Animal Crossing Readathon TBR

Happy March, little sprouts and seedlings! I’m so excited to share my TBR for the Animal Crossing Readathon, which I’m hosting with my dear friend Saima. While my normal readathon approach is to go in with a loose idea of what I’d like to read, and just hope the books I read fit prompts, I’ve decided to go in with a more established TBR this time around! I’m really hoping to make a dent in my pile of ARCs this month, and to get more into the swing of reading again.

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Wrap Up: February 2022

We here at teatimelit stand with our friends in Ukraine, and condemn the actions of the Russian state. We encourage those who are able to donate to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, with all donations going to supporting Ukraine citizens who are vulnerable. You can find a link for the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund here, as well as another resource for where you can donate. 

Goodness, hasn’t February flown by? It’s been a big month for us all here, and we’re so excited to be sharing with you what we’ve read this month. 

This month Caitlyn read 19 books, Cossette read 17 books, and Mary read 7 books. 

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Review: Homicide and Halo-Halo and Interview with author Mia P. Manansala

Things are heating up for Lila Macapagal. Not in her love life, which she insists on keeping nonexistent despite the attention of two very eligible bachelors. Or her professional life, since she can’t bring herself to open her new cafe after the unpleasantness that occurred a few months ago at her aunt’s Filipino restaurant, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen. No, things are heating up quite literally, since summer, her least favorite season, has just started.

To add to her feelings of sticky unease, Lila’s little town of Shady Palms has resurrected the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which she won many years ago–a fact that serves as a wedge between Lila and her cousin slash rival, Bernadette. But when the head judge of the pageant is murdered and Bernadette becomes the main suspect, the two must put aside their differences and solve the case–because it looks like one of them might be next.

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TeaTimeReads March Pick: Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie

Hello everyone! We hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying CRYING IN H MART. We’re super excited to announce that our March book club pick is Racquel Marie’s OPHELIA AFTER ALL!

Here is the full summary for Ophelia After All:

A teen girl navigates friendship drama, the end of high school, and discovering her queerness in Ophelia After All, a hilarious and heartfelt contemporary YA debut by author Racquel Marie.

Ophelia Rojas knows what she likes: her best friends, Cuban food, rose-gardening, and boys – way too many boys. Her friends and parents make fun of her endless stream of crushes, but Ophelia is a romantic at heart. She couldn’t change, even if she wanted to.

So when she finds herself thinking more about cute, quiet Talia Sanchez than the loss of a perfect prom with her ex-boyfriend, seeds of doubt take root in Ophelia’s firm image of herself. Add to that the impending end of high school and the fracturing of her once-solid friend group, and things are spiraling a little out of control. But the course of love–and sexuality–never did run smooth. As her secrets begin to unravel, Ophelia must make a choice between clinging to the fantasy version of herself she’s always imagined or upending everyone’s expectations to rediscover who she really is, after all. 

Links for Ophelia After All: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Content Warnings for Ophelia After All: mentions of underage drinking and vaping, topical mentions of sex, cut-off use of a homophobic slur (challenged), condemned homophobia, discussion of anti-Blackness within a mixed race Latine family (challenged) 

We can’t wait to start Ophelia After All next month and we hope that you’ll join us!

Let’s Talk: Reading Journal Idea

Hi, hello friends and welcome to another post! If you don’t know, I love using my reading journal. Not only is it a creative outlet, but it’s also a fun way to keep track of what I’m reading. I love filling out my various spreads, colour coding them depending on what book it is, and writing a little reflection on my thoughts for it. Sometimes I struggle to think of different spreads in my reading journal, so I thought it would be fun to compile a few ideas just in case you’re lost on what to create. Let’s get into the list! 

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Review: All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle

Cara Hawn’s life fell apart after her father cheated on her mother and got remarried to a woman Cara can’t stand. When Cara accidentally posts a rant about her father online, it goes viral—and catches the attention of the TV producers behind a new reality dating show for single parent families.

The next thing Cara and her mother know, they’ve been cast as leads on the show and are whisked away to sunny Key West where they’re asked to narrow a field of suitors and their kids down to one winning pair. All of this is outside of Cara’s comfort zone, from the meddling producers to the camera-hungry contestants, especially as Cara and her mother begin to clash on which suitors are worth keeping around. And then comes Connor.

As the son of a contestant, Connor is decidedly off-limits. Except that he doesn’t fit in with the cutthroat atmosphere in all the same ways as Cara, and she can’t get him out of her head. Now Cara must juggle her growing feelings while dodging the cameras and helping her mom pick a bachelor they both love, or else risk fracturing their family even more for the sake of ratings. Maybe there’s a reason most people don’t date on TV. 

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Let’s Talk: Caitlyn’s 5 Favorite Books & 5 Anticipated 2022 Releases by Black Authors

Happy Black History Month, everyone! I wanted to take a moment to give some extra love to a few of my favorite stories by Black authors – and truthfully I wanted another excuse to talk about why I love these books. Additionally, there are so many 2022 releases that I’m excited about, so I wanted to hype those up as well!

Before I get into the post, I want to say that it is so important that we are uplifting, listening to and supporting Black voices and stories every day and not only do so during Black History Month. 

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