Antonia Bernardin

The 37th book I read this year was A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal, a new booktok favourite by the author of We Hunt the Flame.

A vague summary

Arthie Casimer runs a notorious tea-room/ blood house on the street where the slums meet the rich district. The tea room caters to both the rich and the poor, as well as the city’s secret vampire’s, who’ve been forced into the shadows after a vampire went rampant through the streets a few years ago. Arthie has made it her business to know the secrets of everyone in the city, to keep her tearoom and her found family safe. When her establishment is threatened she strikes a deal, to sneak into the heavily guarded place where the vampire elite meet and retrieve something in exchange for saving their home. So Arthie and her crew recruit a motley group of people for their heist, including a daughter-turned-forger of one of the ruling elite and a famous artist whose secretly a vampire. But will Archie’s secrets catch up to her?

My thoughts

I really enjoyed this book, it was described to me as ‘six of crows with vampires’ and that turned out to be pretty accurate, Arthie is just Caz but as a women, with a slightly less soul-wrenching back story. I worked out the truth about Arthie fairly early but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it was just well bread-crumbed. I liked the relationships between the character’s and all of their backstories, it’s multiple POV and I think a lot of it was setting up things for the next book. The book does end on a cliff hanger and I’ll definitely be picking up the next one!