I was very excited for this heist novel with vampires set in a colonial Victorian-esque setting, especially because I loved the author’s first series. I overall enjoyed the book but there were a few things that let me down.

To start with what I liked, mainly the atmosphere and setting. You really got a sense of this gritty and corrupt country, with vampires roaming and violence around the corner. I liked the tearoom, even though we weren’t in it enough, and the characters too. They weren’t as compelling as I wanted but still enjoyable to read from the POV of - I think my favourite was Jin. And plus for having a cute cat!

Now what I was mainly let down by was the heist. There was a slow buildup to it with the characters discussing the plan, and the heist was short and lacklustre in comparison. Generally, I felt the pacing was off, and I only really got invested in the last third. After that point, though, I did like the story more and didn’t expect some of the plot twists.

The ending was definitely tense and left me on edge waiting for the next week, which I hope I will enjoy more.

A must read for six of crows and peaks blinder fans! This book did not disappoint. If you love, vampires, heists, found familly, touch her, you die trope this book is for you!!!! Counting down the days until the second one now.

Content Warnings: Colonisation, War, Blood, Violence, Death of a Parent, Emotional Abuse (from a parent), Racism, Xenophobia, Stalking (minor).

Representations: https://trello.com/c/nsqzygec/93-blood-and-tea-1-a-tempest-of-tea-by-hafsah-faizal

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm conflicted on if I should recommend this or not, but overall I think I had a good enough time with it that I would. The only issue I really had with this book is how it handled romance - especially with a bit at the end.

The way I'd describe this book is vampires and tea meets assassins creed and heists. I know the order of assassins was a thing but the way it's portrayed in this book I'd really say is more from the IP assassins creed specifically - there's a ton of similarities and tbh I found that quite fun as someone who loves AC a ton. This whole book revolves around this one major heist, around 60% setting up and 40% heist and the aftermath.

I quite enjoyed the characters mostly, they all had their own goals and motivations which clashed quite nicely throughout the story. The only negative about that is not everyone was clear on that specifically with side characters. This is one thing the book did throughout the whole thing but was more clear in terms of character motivations, but important information was just drip-fed to you. So important info that's critical to the overall story, that's just not told to you until it's needed. Does help with making it a bit less predictable, but the twists then feel a bit undermined as it's not really a twist then it's just "you had no idea about this and this is what it is!".

The romance was quite a weird one in this. The less romance in fantasy, the more I enjoy it. I thought at first this was going to be pretty light on that and it both was and wasn't. Thoughout the middle section of the book it's just constant "oh these feelings are weird but I'm going to ignore them" and that's *constant* in the middle section and often feels really forced in. Like every couple pages kinda thing for all the POVs. The ending quickly changes it up though for a more intimate scene (though there's a shorter scene in the middle that's also more intimate, and that bit feels even more out of place. But gotta get in that description of water running down a bare mans chest....) just because it can kinda. It sorta has a reason in-universe, but the way it's written is just 100% for the romance only. There's many different ways the motivation could have been done other than suddenly ramping up the romance which hadn't really been near that point.
It's in that weird limbo between if you want to read it for romance you might be disappointed and if you want to read it for the low-romance you'll be disappointed in the ending a fair bit.

Also Jin, you gotta stop wanting to sniff women's hair. Please. It's kinda creepy how often it's mentioned.

I did love the heisting, I loved certain parts of the ending (the action parts) and I absolutely loved the kitten. The kitten really made the book for me they were super adorable, really well described, and I absolutely loved how they were used throughout the whole book. Honestly recommend reading for the kitten alone hehe.

Get ready to meet Arthie, Jin, Flick, Matteo and Laith...

A world of humans, Vampires, cross breed vampires and a little tea house known as Spindrift, serving tea by day and blood by night.

Covering difficult themes of discontent, inequality, immigrants and colonisation.

Ettenia is where the Ram rules, a place of magic where the Ettenia pistol was once lodged in a plinth - surrounded by mystery.
Be prepared for the greatest Heist - this book gave me big six of crows vibes. A daring motley crew, with great chemistry and a range of characters. Mix in some Slow burn - and I was sold.

Thank you to Macmillian & NetGalley for providing me with an ARC. All opinions are my own. @panmacmillan and @bookbreaku

I just reviewed A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal. #ATempestofTea #NetGalley

This was worth every second of the extended wait. Hafsah Faizal DELIVERED and more so.

Heists. Vampires. An incredible, diverse cast of characters, all of which feel so real it hurts. Tension. Swoon-worthy, toe-curling romances. Found family. Twists and turns round every corner. Lush, sweeping prose.

A Tempest of Tea leaves you no room to catch your breath. From the very first page, you are transported to White Roaring and you live alongside the characters as they commit their hijinks.

This is a must-read for fans of Six of Crows and The Gilded Wolves. Whilst many don’t care for comparisons between them, this truly completes the Big Three of the beloved subgenre: ‘crew of intelligent idiots making questionable choices.’ The plots are entirely different, but if you love a ragtag found family, then these five will work their way into your heart.

Hafsah really packed a punch with the ending. I need book 2 yesterday.

Thank you to Macmillian & NetGalley for providing me with an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thankyou to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Books for a free e-arc in exchange of an honest review.

DNF'd at 30%
Whilst i have DNF'd this book, it wasn't necessarily due to the story and writing. It just wasn't a book for me. I sometimes can struggle with YA and just struggled to want to read this book and pick it up.
The writing style was easy to follow and the storyline did seem intriguing at times- just not enough to keep me wanting to read on.

From the first 25 pages, I thought it was going to be a 5 ⭐ read and oh my word, it was!

All the things I loved:
💕 Arthie as an MC and her whole personality and strength.
💕 The group of friends. Every character has a layered personality and I especially loved the banter.
💕 Laith as a morally grey MMC. He kept me guessing the entire time! Loved the will they/won't they with Arthie.
💕 The fact everything revolves around a tea room!!

This book was pacy, grilling and I was completely obsessed by the characters. The twists need to be applauded!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really enjoyed the found family aspect of this novel - it's definitely one you'll like if you enjoyed Six of Crows and the Dregs. I didn't twig about Arthie until embarrassingly late on, though all the signs were there! However, I would love it if not everyone immediately hooked up with other members of their crew, and there was something about the writing style that didn't quite gel with me, otherwise it would have been 5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

<b>Arthie Casimir was a maestro commanding the room. A queen at her throne. The hangman at the gallows.</b>

<b>A Tempest of Tea</b> follows a criminal mastermind who runs a tea house by day, and a bloodhouse by night. With her band of misfits, she carefully plans a heist to protect her establishment but along the way she stumbles upon secret after secret, conspiracy after conspiracy.

It draws inspiration from King Arthur, Peaky Blinders, and Six of Crows so the setting is both fantastical and industrial (just add Vampires to it).

It promised itself to be packed with action and plot twists, but what it suffered mostly from is the painful pacing. Everything about the book told me I would enjoy it, but when the pacing is excruciatingly slow it just fails to hold my attention.

The point of views are split between three characters, and only one I was tempted to skim through as I wasn't invested in her.

I do think fans of Six of Crows would enjoy it, but keep your expectations neither too high or too low.

I went to YALL Fest last November, and, let me tell ya, people were literally lining up around the block just to get their hands on a single ARC. This book was no exception; perhaps more so because the author herself was there to sign them. It's because of this hype that drew me to request an ARC on NetGalley (I couldn't get mine at YALL Fest).

Now that I have read it, I have mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, there are some really good ideas here. The discussions of colonialism and racism were blunt despite the fantasy setting, but I liked that it was there. I love the main base being a teahouse that's a front of to a vampire speakeasy; the whole set up for the world and the 1920s-esque feel about it is something I absolutely adore in books, especially in fantasy.

But, on the other hand, this book wants to be Six of Crows so badly it hurts. Arthie doesn't have the charm nor presence Kaz Brekker has. In fact, despite all the heavy banter, I didn't find it charming or witty. It's weird, because despite how it plays out on page, it fell incredibly flat for me. I had a hard time connecting to what was going on half the time, and when I did, it was only for brief periods, like the scenes where Arthie and Laith were one-on-one (But not when there was heavy sexual tension. I only liked it when it was more about seizing up the other, not the ogling). Otherwise, I found the characters kinda meh.

Another thing that bothered me was the writing. It teetered between purple and modern, and the combination of these two made it hard for me to get into. Lines like 'mysterious as the moon' had me rolling my eyes. Some times it gets way too purple to the point I get lost what's happening in the story, and I don't get what was revealed until the writing swings back to modern and tells me point blank (This is referencing a specific reveal regarding Arthie near the end of the book. If you know, you know)

I just found this out while I was scrolling through reviews, but apparently this is also a reimagining of King Arthur?? I only have surface level knowledge of King Arthur, but even so, I still feel kinda dumb for not picking up on that. I also don't blame myself because, besides Arthie and a side character named Penn, it's really hard to pick up on that. The only place I found that confirmed this was on Waterstones, but everywhere else heavily relies on comparing this to Six of Crows.

All in all, I liked this but not too much. I don't think I will read the sequel, nor Faizal's previous works (Which I've heard mixed things about, anyway). But with the hype around this book, I'm sure this will definitely hit its mark with other readers.

this book was so fun!!! i didn’t know what to expect but i was truly obsessed and will be needing more from faizal!! <3

A Tempest of Tea is a delightful, atmospheric fantasy about an unlikely group of social outcasts tentatively working together to go up against some of the most powerful in society and pull off a heist.

Secrets, and the power you can have over someone by knowing their secrets, play a big role in this story. There is some clever plotting that meant some of the revelations I had started to piece together, whilst others took me by surprise which made it a very satisfying read. The setting is an urban historical fantasy world, not our own, but the parallels are clear. There is some romance element, but the development of the familial and friendship relationships was much more interesting to me and I would most happily return to their world for a sequel.

Recommended to all fantasy fans.

A great novel full of intrigue and suspense, as well as a satisfying romance element. It had a slow start, with a less exciting first half followed by a very good latter half.

STUNNING. i am so in awe of this masterpiece. will never be the same again and i need book two in my hands asap.

My first impressions of this book were quite simple - tea, vampires, heist, found family.
I don't like to fall for the idea of a book when I have such a vague idea of the plot, but I couldn't help but have my curiosity piqued when the synopsis for A Tempest of Tea came upon my radar.
Our story follows the perspectives of a handful of characters, primarily those of Arthie and Jin. Arthie and Jin are two young adults who run a tea house by day, which becomes a place for vampires to come to feed under the cover of night. The Spindrift (their tea house) is not just their place of work, but also their home. When The Spindrift comes under threat, an opportunity to break into a building to retrieve a document crosses their laps, and if successful, they'll save their beloved cafe.
This is a YA novel, and so there isn't any heavy world building, and the story is plot heavy. It feels quite dark, without being too sinister, and manages to retain an element of fun throughout, while dealing with some heavy themes.
I enjoyed the book throughout, but it absolutely levelled up in the last third of the book, becoming incredibly fast paced, full of action, and incredibly twisty.
The only real complaint that I have about this book is that it's the first book in a series, and I'm going to have to wait far too long to get the opportunity to pick up the second book to find out where the story goes.

2⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Unfortunately this was very meh for me. It fell really flat and I was just expecting more from the story. I love a good heist, but this just felt very rushed.

I didn't feel like I got to know the characters very well at all, so whenever anything happened I didn't feel strongly one way or another and that really let me down. I wanted so much to love these characters much like I did with the Six of Crows characters (which this book has been compared to) and I just didn't get that at all. They all just fell very flat.

The plot was also a bit of a let down. I was expecting a grand heist and it just all seemed to be over in a very short span of time. Things moved just far too quickly and I never really got time to breathe between plot twist after plot twist and honestly not even all of them were relevant - it just felt like the author had put in another plot twist because she'd ran out of things to say but needed the book to be longer. However I do think with the right world building and character development, this book could have benefitted a lot from being maybe 100/150 pages longer and I possibly would have enjoyed it more.

A Tempest of Tea is the first book I've read from Hafsah Faizal and what a great introduction to her writing. This book has made me an instant fan and I will be catching up on her previous work sooner rather than later (especially since this one sort of tied in to it).

I absolutely loved Arthie. What an icon. I loved her intelligence, her ruthlessness, her sass, her care for others. I loved her scheming. What a brilliant protagonist. I liked how Faizal showed Arthie's rage, her quest for vengeance, her sadness, her ambition. She was such a well rounded and in depth character.

Faizal's worldbuilding is top tier. THE ATMOSPHERE! THE VIBES WERE VIBING! The setting was so vivid, and it did not take much effort at all on my part to picture the scenes as they were happening. I felt fully immersed in to the world throughout the entire story.

Faizal cut to the core and did not beat around the bush (nor should she) on the topic of colonialism. She exposed it for all it's ugly elements, with scathing descriptions, showing the impact that colonialism has on people. This really opened up a dialogue o the state of our history and our present - this might be a fictional world, but what Faizal is writing about, where she is drawing from, is anything but fictional. This is the reality, and has been the reality, so many are afraid to face or outright deny (all, typically, for their own benefit or privilege).

I really enjoyed the plot twists and the reveals. There's one big one, which in retrospect was so glaringly obvious it was ridiculous that I did not notice. But I was GASPING. Like OH MY? It was WONDERFUL. I LOVED IT. I genuinely want to yell at everyone about how brilliant it was but I'm keeping my mouth shut because I believe everyone deserves the thrill of experiencing that reveal for the first time.

All the characters were great in their own ways and I loved the dynamics. I want to comment on Arthie and Jin - I love their found family relationship. I cried at several points in the book because of them.

I'm really excited for the next book for so many reasons. I've got a few theories that I need answers to (I think I'm right on at least one of them!!!!).

Just had to drop that I love Matteo before I end this review.

I recommend this book to literally everyone because it is brilliant and I'm really sad that it isn't out yet because 1) have to wait for people to get it to shout at them 2) a longer wait for the sequel for me.

Thanks to Macmillan Children's Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review. Please send me the second one whenever you receive it, please and thank you.

This is going to be a game changer for the YA Fantasy genre.

Thank you so much Netgalley UK for giving me an E-Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A Tempest of Tea" by Hafsah Faizal is a spellbinding journey through the city of White Roaring in the country of Ettenia, filled with complex characters, political intrigue, and a dash of romance. The author's prowess in writing and world-building shines through, creating a vivid tapestry that captivates the reader from the very beginning.

The writing style of Faizal is commendable, drawing the reader in with rich and descriptive prose. The city and capital of White Roaring, reminiscent of Ketterdam, are brought to life with evocative details that immerse the reader in the world of "A Tempest of Tea." The author's ability to create a captivating atmosphere contributes significantly to the overall appeal of the narrative.

Arthie, the main protagonist, is a multifaceted character who exudes strength and wit. Drawing parallels to Kaz Brekker, her prowess in business and negotiations is evident from the early stages of the story. The narrative skillfully unfolds Arthie's journey from a girl in rags to a master of her trade, showcasing her progression and resilience. The use of humour, sarcasm, and wit in Arthie's character, adds a layer of charm to her personality.

The world-building in "A Tempest of Tea" is intricately crafted, with Ettenia being a realm filled with political strife, colonial influences, and hidden secrets. The establishment of Spindrift, Arthie's tea house by day and vampire haven by night, adds a unique layer to the world-building, creating a safe space for vampires and outcasts alike.

Magic, an integral part of the narrative, is seamlessly woven into the plot. Arthie's actions, especially her involvement in reclaiming stolen artifices and her interactions with vampires, showcase the magical elements present in Ettenia. The incorporation of vampire lore and their covert existence in the city adds a layer of mystery and intrigue.

The plot unfolds perfectly with action, suspense, and political machinations. Arthie's motivations rooted in revenge against colonial oppression and her determination to protect her found family at Spindrift drive the narrative forward. The heist setup, involving Arthie, Jin, and their crew, introduces a thrilling and unpredictable element that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.

The characters, individually and in their relationships, contribute significantly to the richness of the narrative. Arthie and Jin's sibling bond is portrayed with affection and warmth, while the dynamics between Arthie and Flick showcase the strength of female friendships. The budding romance between Arthie and Laith adds a delightful layer of complexity to the story. Additionally, the interactions between Flick and Jin hint at a potential romantic subplot, creating an intriguing dynamic within the group.

The introduction of Laith Sayaad adds another layer to the narrative, with his charm, mysterious past, and undeniable chemistry with Arthie. The depiction of their interactions reveals a captivating dynamic that promises further exploration in the narrative.

In summary, "A Tempest of Tea" is a compelling fantasy novel with impeccable writing, immersive world-building, magical elements, intricate plot, well-developed characters, and nuanced exploration of themes such as colonialism, revenge, and found family. Hafsah Faizal's ability to create a world that is both enchanting and thought-provoking makes this book a must-read for fans of fantasy and heist narratives.

I enjoyed this book so much! The characters were amazing, the story was incredible, ever changing, quick paced, so many twists and turns throughout! I’m beyond excited to read the next book!

This book is a wild ride - right from the get-go, and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the last sentence. A truly brilliant mash up of Arthurian and Vampiric lore, with all the jeopardy of a classic heist movie. Plus tea! What's not to love?

This book reminded me of all my favourite things... The scene setting and world building reminded me of Laini Taylor's 'Daughter of Smoke and Bone', the incredible characters and shady dealings brought to mind Scott Lynch's 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' and the Scooby-Gang/found family vibes were as fun and witty as the 'Firefly' TV series.

Faizal has given us a fun and exciting book that also explores class, race, revenge and effects of colonisation, through the lens of some well-rounded and interesting characters. I had such a good time reading this book and I just know it will be one of my favourites for the year.