{"id":43731,"date":"2024-05-18T21:34:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T01:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43731"},"modified":"2024-05-18T21:34:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T01:34:36","slug":"review-of-a-tempest-of-tea-by-hafsah-faizal-read-by-maya-saroya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43731","title":{"rendered":"Review of A Tempest of Tea, by Hafsah Faizal, read by Maya Saroya"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A Tempest of Tea<\/em><\/p>\n

by Hafsah Faizal
\nread by Maya Saroya<\/p>\n

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 11 hours, 2 minutes.
\nReview written May 8, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.<\/p>\n

I put this audiobook on hold because it’s wildly popular with our own public library customers. A Tempest of Tea<\/em> is a heist novel with vampires.<\/p>\n

By day, Arthie Casimir runs an upscale teahouse in the bad part of the capital city. By night, secret panels come open, and it transforms into a bloodhouse serving vampires, so they can sate their thirst with folks willing to be paid for the privilege, or with special coconut-mixed blood drinks. The bloodhouse is illegal, but Arthie has paid informants to warn her before raids so she can put the bloodhouse gear back into hiding. <\/p>\n

Arthie’s an immigrant to the kingdom. When she was a child, colonizers killed her parents and took their land. Later on, she teamed up with another young orphan named Jin, and she figured out how to pull a magical pistol from stone and win the respect of the city. (Between her name and pulling the weapon from stone, I expected Arthurian overtones, but didn’t really find any more than that.) Together, she and Jin built up their teahouse and peddle tea and secrets.<\/p>\n

But as the story opens, Arthie learns that the future of her teahouse is threatened. A mysterious figure comes and tells her she can save it if she will help him steal some compromising material about the king of the empire — housed in a citadel kept by elite vampires that is opened once a year for an exclusive charity auction.<\/p>\n

So that’s the heist novel part. Arthie and Jin assemble a team and lay plans to pull off the heist. Of course things don’t go completely according to plan….<\/p>\n

I wasn’t the best audience for this book, because although I do enjoy heist novels, I’m not a big vampire novel fan, and am also not a big fan of blackmailers and others consistently slipping under the law. They gave Arthie strong reasons for her contempt of people in authority, and I was won over to be on her side. My other problem, though, was that the plot was fairly complex and there was a pretty big cast of characters with the perspective switching frequently. I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things (makes housework so much more pleasant!), but I think maybe I missed some crucial details and wasn’t following along all that well in the middle. All the same, I wasn’t going to stop listening. And there is an annoying cliffhanger ending, and I think I will be compelled to find out how things turn out. (It’s said to be a duology, so yay, this is the only suspense required.) One of the most delightful things about this audiobook was at the end, they give us a conversation between the author and her husband about the book, which is truly delightful.<\/p>\n

If you do like vampire novels or heist novels, and don’t mind a little not-quite-legal dealings from characters who have good reason to be upset with the authorities – then give this book a try!<\/p>\n

hafsahfaizal.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/tempest_of_tea.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal read by Maya Saroya Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 11 hours, 2 minutes. Review written May 8, 2024, from a library eaudiobook. I put this audiobook on hold because it’s wildly popular with our own public library customers. A Tempest of Tea is a heist novel with vampires. By […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-fantasy","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43731"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43788,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43731\/revisions\/43788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}