I didn't realize going into this was set in the same world as we hunt the flame! I've never read those books so I was just a sprinkle confused but I loved it. Despite there being a lot of characters, it was relatively easy to follow and I loved it!

If you love Six of Crows, especially Kaz Brekker, you'll love this.

what a great book and i loved reading this author. . loved the romance and how the couple came to be. Loved that they worked through their issues and found love. Loved this mystery

Richly crafted and elegantly told, a fantasy romance with teeth and claws! This duology is destined to become a new classic!

Mix a heist, a love triangle, a scathing rebuke of colonialism, and sprinkle in some slow burn lip licking, vampire lore, and kittens, and you might come close to what Hafsah has created here. Absolutely enchanting!

I cannot wait to see what happens in book 2! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy. These opinions are my own.

This book blew me away! I really enjoyed Faizal's Sands of Arawiya, so when I saw that she had a new series that was in the same universe I immediately added it to my tbr. In my opinion, this book surpassed her other duology.

A Tempest of Tea is everything that you want in a first book of a new series. It had complex and likable characters, and intriguing storyline, fast paced timing, and mystery. From the first page I was hooked.

Each character, Arthie, Jin, Flick, Matteo, and Laith, was so fun to read. Arthie is the mastermind with more secrets than a diary, Jin is our comic relief who also happens to be somewhat of a rake, Flick is the naive girl who has never felt she fit in until now, Matteo is the flirtatious vampire who has some secrets as well, and Laith is our connection to the Sands of Arawiya series who we have not seen the last of yet. I enjoyed reading about each of the characters, and already saw some development just from the first book. They each have their own reasons for the heist, and I am interested to see how their back stories all unfold further as the series progresses.

Now onto the romance. I was not expecting much in the romance department, and was actually very surprised, in a good way, about how much actually took place. We have one budding romance between Flick and Jin which I am obsessed with. Jin has all the experience and Flick has none. It makes for such a fun dynamic. Plus, Flick makes Jin feel like he is a school boy with a crush for the first time. The next relationship confounds me a bit because it could end up being a bit of a love triangle, unless I am reading all of the signs wrong. It could either be Arthie and Laith or Arthie and Matteo. Laith and Arthie have the hottest connecting, and he did betray her which leads to great tension and having to overcome obstacles in order for a future to persist. Matteo is just a flirt so it makes for some fun banter between him and Arthie. Either way, I am excited to read about the couples.

At its core this was a heist book with vampires. I love both and therefore I loved this book. It was spicy and fresh and all around a great read. I am so excited for the continuation of it and highly recommend it to lovers of vampires and the Six of Crows duology.

Beware: The cliffhanger will leave you hanging and begging for more!

I received an e-arc of this title from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A Tempest of Tea is a fantasy story of the original colonizing nation that is England. In this book, it’s called Ettenia and is ruled by a usurping monarch called The Ram. Just like in actual history, there is plundering, there is pillaging. There is outright murder to gain land and resources. There is also enslavement via the East Jeevant Company, EJC for short. East India Trading Company, you can not hide. The part that makes this book different from actual historical England is the existence of vampires.

Arthie Casimir is the lovely but feisty girl on the cover of the book and Jin, her adoptive brother. Arthie and Jin found each other as children. Both orphaned from traumatic events. Although Jin is two years older than Jin, Arthie is the more experienced street kid. She takes Jin under her wing and gives them both the last name Casimir. Insert all the heart and love emojis here. They grow up very protective of each other. They also grow up on the streets, so by the time of the present story, they own a teahouse called Spindrift by way of blackmail. They did what they had to do to survive.

Now, this teahouse is not just any other teahouse. It’s a teahouse during the day, and a bloodhouse at night. Vampires come and pay humans for the service of dining on their blood. Arthie and Jin are at the top of their game until The Ram makes plans to buy the Spindrift from their proprietor in two weeks time. Whatever are they to do? In comes Laith, a mysterious young man who appears to be one of The Ram’s top guards, and he has a proposition for Arthie: help him steal a ledger from the well-to-do vampires in the city so he can take down The Ram. Arthie agrees because this means she can keep the Spindrift. From here, we get a story full of twists, turns, backstabbing, secret keeping and reveals as a crew is from a la Ocean’s 11.

This book is told from three points of view, Arthie, Jin, and another character introduced about twenty percent into the story called Flick. Flick or Felicity is the adopted daughter of the founder of the EJC. All three of these characters have very distinct personalities. Arthie is the unemotional hardcore strong female. Jin is the pretty boy tinkerer. I was honestly picturing any of the dudes from BTS as Jin. Flick, on the other hand, is the sheltered newcomer. She is brought up in privilege and isn’t used to the hard knock life. Out of all three POVs, I initially could care less about Flick’s character. Her POV was the weakest. Then, her character began to grow and develop while Arthie’s stayed the same. Then, I couldn’t really care less about Arthie’s POV. She was brass, crass, and almost a little too self-righteous.

The other member of the heist, besides Laith, is Matteo Andoni, your typical hot vampire. Matteo seemed like every other sexy vampire but only initially. He too had great character development. While his flirty quips made me roll my eyes throughout the entire book, he did show tremendous depth of character that would not have been foreseen in him. Laith was as enigmatic as they come. I couldn’t really form an opinion about him because we never really got to know him or his true motivations even though it was actually explained. It just was a little hard to interpret and a little harder to understand.

The pacing of this book was even throughout. It started at the speed limit and stayed there from beginning to end. One downfall that cannot be overlooked in this book is the tremendous amount of romance tropes. From the vampire sexiness to a love triangle, to unbridled first love nerves, it just wouldn’t stop. I swear every other paragraph was someone growing hot from looking at someone else’s body. Excuse me as I skim these parts and get back to the story.

Even with all the romance, Hafsah Faizal can write some beautiful prose. There were so many passages I found myself highlighting because of how she summed up my internal feelings about colonization, enslavement, and forced immigration.

RTC - but in the meantime, seeing the overall rating of this book makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills

<I>First, a thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an eARC of this book.</i>

Y’all, what the hell happened here?

I requested this on NetGalley because I saw how high the average rating was and thought it <i>had</i> to be good, surely. By the time I actually got around to reading it, several of my friends had already read… And their reviews did <b>not</b> match the energy of the overall rating.

Suffice it to say, I ended up where many of my friends/mutuals did… This was just not an enjoyable read. I wouldn’t even say it was a worthwhile read in a <i>I can’t look away from this train wreck</i> sort of way a là Tommy Wiseau’s <i>The Room</i> (which I have watched [and enjoyed!] many times).

Frankly, this book felt to me as if Faizal was sitting around one day, thinking <i>hmmm, what do the people like? What do the people CRAVE?</i> and thus came up with a list of some of the more popular themes/tropes of our current time:

1. Love triangle (sort of?? What the hell was going on with that?)
2. Multiple POV (but only sort of, and frankly, the divide between POVs didn’t really make a ton of sense)
3. The Heist™ ([book:Six of Crows|23437156], anyone?)
4. Vampires (I mean, [book:House of Hunger|60052118] & [book:A Dowry of Blood|60521937] did all right)
5. A super extra special teen/young adult who’s <i>not like the other girls</i>
6. And I don’t know this <i>for sure</i> but it seems like tea itself is something the cool kids are doing now (listen, I <b>did</b> like [book:A Magic Steeped in Poison|56978089], and maybe it’s a stretch to compare the two, but…)

And Faizal thought hm, got to have some “original” ideas, and that’s where things started to go into “what the actual fuck” territory; I’m going to put this behind spoiler tags so reader beware, etc etc -

<spoiler>Okay can someone please explain to me the fucking coconuts? I had to read that MULTIPLE TIMES because I was like, I must have missed something, surely, this makes absolutely no sense - and maybe this is somehow racist/me showing how much of a bland, white American I am… Like in other folklore is coconut magical? Have healing properties? If so, please tell me, and I will rightfully so apologize for my ignorance). And Jin’s…. Coconut scientist parents? W H A T ??

Additionally, what is up with the fucking SWOR-I MEAN GUN IN THE STONE ?? Um hello?? This also made no sense to me?? That whole subplot made me feel like I had been high for at least half of the book, but that was not the author’s intent, nor my expectation when reading the book… I am all for fucking crazy shit but only if that was the INTENT and not, like, some weird byproduct of the author not being very good at writing.</spoiler>

And then on top of all that, I just think the writing wasn’t good. The pacing wasn’t good. The dialogue wasn’t good. The relationships weren’t good, the weird flirting between literally everyone who was attempting to flirt felt like it was written by AI “trained” to write flirtatious interactions (so much cringing on my part, and I don’t think it was the I-am-too-old-and-not-the-target-audience cringing).

Normally my dislike of a book is really just a taste preference and I try not to yuck someone else’s potential yum, but this was just… objectively not good in my opinion.

To me, this read like the author had a wild ass dream one night and could only remember bits and pieces of it, and then decided “hey this would make a cool book”, and then had to fill in the gaps to make… some sort of an attempt at a cohesive story.

And then like that story got posted to tumblr or for NaMoWriMo or something and a few friends/relatives/grandma read it and were like “yeah!… that was… good!” And no other editing was done whatsoever and somehow it just got published as-is, nothing more done to it.

And this is a series/duology?? (I can’t be assed to look it up, sorry) Once again… um, hello? There were way too many plots that got unfinished/hastily finished/sort of… addressed?? In this book so like… yeah, I <i>suppose</i> (grudgingly I say) you’d have to write a next book but like… Woof. I ain’t gonna read it.

This is by far the longest review I’ve written in a long while, so I do have to say I feel like a mean person since this is quite a long-winded and rambling diss track… But frankly I feel lied to by all of the 4/5 star books. <b>DID WE EVEN READ THE SAME BOOK EVERYONE WHO GAVE 5 STARS?? BE HONEST.</b>

From the initial impression, I can already tell that this book will be imensively popular amongst its target audience. Vampire gang? BIPOC leads? Found family? Vengeance? My teenage self would have been overjoyed to discover something like this on the shelves.

Current me happily followed along and nodded in appreciation of the author's clear dedication and passion for this story. I know it won't stay with me. The book doesn't speak to me beyond 'fun'. The characters are okay; Arthie, of course, is a compelling highlight, the rest serves a purpose and then tapers off instead of being memorable. Again, I want to reiterate that there is nothing wrong with the book, it feels wrong for me to rate it less than four stars -- a reread and or sequel have a very good chance of changing my mind. But, for now, A Tempest of Tea isn't for me, and that's okay. I will happily reccomend it to those that would enjoy it.

(A big thank you to the publisher for the enthusiastic approval :)

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal is a fun YA heist novel! The novel features a diverse and lovable cast of characters you quickly root for. The world-building is well done and creates a fascinating realm that is, at turn, gritty and elegant. The heist plotline kept me engaged and was full of twists and surprises. As in any good YA novel, the romantic plotlines were full of yearning, and I look forward to seeing how those grow and progress as the story continues. I recommend this book to fans of the Six of Crows duology.

A Tempest of Tea is an interesting and original story, merging ensemble heist tropes with vampires and colonialism. In a Victorian World where vampires live alongside humans, all Arthie Casimir wants to do is run her teashop. An immigrant orphan herself, the Tea Shop represents a place of safety and independence within a colonial world that threatens to literally suck you dry. When Arthie's lease on the teashop is compromised, she assembles a crew of humans and vampires to break into the heart of power in the city in order gain the leverage needed to keep what she and most of her crew call home.

While the story is full of action and adventure it also takes its time in developing each of the characters and setting the stage for what is ahead. You care about them all as Faizal gradually lets us into the source of their insecurities and the secrets they hold. The writing is fabulous and keeps you guessing up until the very end. It's an incredible, yet painful, ride.

I enjoyed listening to this story as an audiobook. The narrator does a great job of giving each character a distinct voice and heightening the tension as the fight scenes and action progress. She also knows when to slow down and really help us feel for the characters, especially Arthie and Jinn. I am grateful to Macmillian, Macmillian audio and Netgalley for allowing me access to an early listening copy and e-copy of this book. Having both made it enjoyable all the more.

I certainly recommend this book be on your TBR and I will be excited to see where this story goes in future books.

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal is a good fit for those seeking a thrilling and immersive fantasy adventure that combines elements of heists, vampire lore, and complex characters, with a focus on Arthie's journey as a strong and determined protagonist.

I had high hopes, and I tried very hard to like this. I simply couldn't. The problem started with the underdeveloped plot. The world could have been built a little bit better because outside taking the vampire trope, I couldn't see anything original nor interesting in a group of people who loosely don't like each other to finish the job. The world-building was done redundantly, there was a lot of description of nothing really. Nothing that didn't draw me to the story or protagonists. Now, about characters. They are the most bland bunch who are walking trauma with no personality whatsoever. And they are just simply unlikeable. Especially the main character. There is no purpose in anything she does or says. She just runs her mouth to show everyone how badass she is. The tea house doesn't exist, in comparison to Peaky Blinder, and even worse The Six of Crows is nonexistent. The essence of these two creations was completely lost, otherwise we would have something to talk about. One thing, ONE, I appreciate is the anti-colonial themes.

I can't say I didn't enjoy this, but I also don't feel like it really made an impact on me. This just read to me like a very average heist novel and didn't really stand out in its subgenre. The characters are fun, but I never felt emotionally invested in what happened to them. I did like the book more towards the ending, but it's not a new favourite for me, and I probably won't read the sequel.

This book was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Hafsah Faizal’s lush writing and vivid characters, paired with the backdrop of a world where vampires roam the streets and drink from patrons in tea shops at night, A Tempest of Tea was an exquisite read.

This cast of characters was ruthless, swoon-worthy, full of humor and wit. Arthie, our leading lady, is probably the most badass main character I’ve ever read. She will do whatever it takes to defend her own. Jin, her brother by choice not by blood, is so clever and does things to my heart. He’s good with his words and even better with his charm. The accolades go on and on.

This heist tale is full of action and will take you on a ride. The chapters are told from different POVs so the reader truly gets the full scope of the story.

A Tempest of Tea was a fantastic start to this fantasy duology! I cannot wait to get my hands on the second installment. It’s safe to say that I’m absolutely hooked.

DNF at 40%

I like the concept of the plot, but it felt like it is trying to be like Six of Crows and is just not nailing it. It's hard to explain, but I also had trouble following the storyline because of the author's writing style. I can't quite put my finger on what wasn't working for me. Everything felt like too much, but also not enough. The author attempts to weave elements of the Arthurian legend with commentary on colonialism and throws in a paranormal twist. This could have been really cool, and yet sadly the efforts to world build came at the cost of character and plot development. I nearly made it halfway through the book, and almost nothing had happened to move the story along. I just couldn't bring myself to continue.

Quick summary, this Six of Crows but with vampires!

I loved this so much, so many twists I didn’t see coming, I cannot wait to see where this goes.

Arthie Casimir is the head of a local criminal gang in White Roaring and runs Spindledrift, a house catering to tea lovers in the day and blood suckers by night. After being blackmailed into joining forces with a captain of the masked monarch’s guard to pull off an impossible heist, she must gather allies with specific skill sets, or she’ll lose her criminal empire forever.

A Tempest of Tea had the beautiful writing and diverse cast you can expect from Hafsah Faizal. However, I just think I’m not a big fan of heist novels. For example, I thought Six of Crows was just an okay read, while the majority of people are feral for that book. I think if you’re looking for a more diversity or a heavier fantasy element than what was in Six of Crows, I think this would be a great read. I believe I’m out of the norm here regarding my opinion, so don’t let this review sway you. I will always appreciate this author’s writing style, as it’s beautiful, and her world building capabilities are fantastic. I just think I’m not a heist girly and found this story to be boring for my tastes.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing an early copy, I’m leaving this review voluntarily.

Short and Sweet Review
Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and by day she runs a tea shop but by night it becomes an illegal blood house. When the tea house is threatened Arthie comes up with a plan, a heist if you will to save everything she’s worked for. To pull off this heist Arthie asks some of the city’s most skilled outcast to join her crew. During the duration of the heist Arthie unravels secret after secret and eventually realizes that she’s in the middle of a conspiracy that could change everything.
I’m really not sure where to start with this review. The premise for this book sounds amazing and there’s a lot happening in this book some good and some bad and mainly bad because the idea just missed the target. A stranger approaches Arthie with the idea to steal a ledger that will end up taking down the king and Arthie accepts and starts to get her crew together. The crew consists of Jin which is Arthies right hand, Flick a nobles daughter who is trying her hand at criminal mischief, and Matteo a vampire who just showed up one day. This world is full of vampires and that was interesting, what was also interesting was that our main character Arthie is one but even those closest to her don’t know it. Arthie is a strong female lead and she didn’t have it easy growing up so anything she can do to make sure the teahouse which she built from the bottom up will be safe she’ll do it. We do get the POVs of Arthie, Jin, and Flick, I wouldn’t say I preferred one over the other. I feel like we got to see more of the planning of the heist than the actual heist taking place and at that point the story slowed down for me. There were plot twists but even that couldn’t save the book from the downward trajectory. I feel like this book is trying to be like Six of Crows but in that aspect it just fails. I do think the ending was interesting and from what happened in those last 15-20 pages I may be interested in seeing where this story will go.
Overall, the premise for this book sounded amazing, the delivery didn’t quite reach the mark. This wasn’t a bad book but it wasn’t the greatest either, it lands somewhere in the middle for me.

The perfect read in so many ways! Arthie owns a tea shop that often comes under fire. It's tea for the rich and beautiful during the day, and then at night, it's a blood room for the vampires. However, this is not her biggest crime in this place. It's really because she is an immigrant in a land of colonizers, the people who tore her land and family from her. When Arthie meets a mysterious and handsome ally, she knows she must risk everything just for a chance to keep the life she has built.

This book is about a grand heist, found family, and fighting for what is right. I was right there rooting on Arthie and the others the whole time. I think this will definitely be a favorite book of 2024!

Out February 20, 2024!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

This book was wonderful with a fun group of likable main characters, a fascinating yet easy-to-understand historical urban fantasy world, and an exciting heist! Faizal’s writing is gripping, I felt very immersed in the world and the characters and their motivations. At times the language was a little too flowery, especially the dialogue, but other than that everything was well written.

I loved the take on the world that Faizal has built; there were brief mentions of her other series but you don’t have to have read them to understand what was happening in this book. There are also vampires in this one but it felt very different from other vampire novels, which I appreciated!

I found the heist to be a little bit slow, so this gets a 4.5 from me. But there’s a fun twist at the end and this is going to be a series that I'll be following!

This is like a better-written but less intense Gilded Wolves, so take that as you will!

🌈 Queer rep: no queer characters are mentioned, but there’s a brief moment where a man hits on one of the main male characters and it’s seen as normal. So maybe some room for queer characters going forward, but none in this book.

Hafsah Faizal is one of my favorite YA writers of this generation. I have a soft spot for We Hunt the Flame and We Free the Stars. Her detail to her prose is impecable, and the manner in which she weaves character development into the plot is fantastic. Therefore, A Tempest of Tea is one of my most anticipated novels of 2024, and I’ve been waiting almost two years for this book.

I think my expectations were too high because although this book started as a great idea, unfortunately the execution was lacking.

Faizal’s writing is still exceptional, but I will say that there is a lot of purple prose that it feels that it’s taking away from her writing characters and world building. The pacing was one of the aspects from this novel that suffered tremendously. It was rushed yet it slowed in the middle and then it was fast paced. Additionally, I wished this book was longer. I think it would’ve been helpful in order for Faizal to develop her characters’, their dynamics, and their individual objectives.

Which leads me to another topic — the characters. At the surface, these characters are good, interesting even. However, it feels like Faizal didn’t want to unveil much of the characters for the sake of book 2, but I think it was a confusing decision. These characters’ motives were more tell than show, which makes the novel suffer more.

As for the plot, it was slow and I wished there was more heist and more planning. The heist aspect happened fast and I wished they lingered on it.

Overall, it was a bit of disappointing read but I have hope that book 2 will be much better.