Heist novels—i.e. Six of Crows and others—aren’t typically the kind of story I gravitate to, but I have liked a couple of them in the past. I was excited to try A Tempest of Tea, because I’ve read novels by Hafsah Faizal before. We Hunt the Flame and We Free the Stars just so happen to be the books that make up one of my favorite young adult fantasy duologies. So, to say I’m disappointed I didn’t like—and ultimately DNFed—A Tempest of Tea would be an understatement. At face value, this book should have everything I’m looking for in a fantasy adventure: a cast of misfits, vampires, and a less than legal establishment that’s facing a sudden threat. The writing was good. However, the substance of the setup/inciting incident—even the beginning, the introduction of the some of the POV characters, and moments that should have been monumental shakeups for the cast—didn’t have the impact with me that I thought it would. Ultimately, I’m just not the right reader for this one. But I encourage others to check out more reviews and make up their own minds about A Tempest of Tea.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) for this copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an advanced copy. A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal did not disappoint! Set in the same world as the Sands of Arawiya duology, A Tempest Of Tea builds a solid fantasy world with a memorable cast of characters. Faizal explores themes of colonization and the impact it has had on the characters.
Arthie, an orphaned immigrant turned business woman is the best kind of morally gray character. She runs a tea house with her chosen brother, Jin, that doubles as a vampire blood house by night. Arthie deals in secrets and threats, and when her business is threatened, she assembles a team to pull off a major heist.
With a steady plot, political intrigue, romantic tension, and witty dialogue, Faizal gives us a satisfying opening to this new duology. A great addition to any YA collection. Recommended for fans of vampires, multiple POV's, Peaky Blinders, multicultural characters.

This is my first book by Hafsiah Faizal and I did have a lot of fun. She takes every role in a traditional heist and gives us a complex characters with secrets and loyalties.
It did start slow at the beginning, but the last 1/4 in particular was full of twists and reveals. The world building and heist itself were the highlights for me as well as the platonic, will do anything for each other relationship between Jin and Arthie.
I'm excited to see how the world and society of different tiers of vampires plays out in the second book, especially with the reveals towards the end!

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for allowing me to read this early!

This is one of my highly anticipated books of 2024 and it did not disappoint! The pacing not only kept the reader engaged but also create moments of high intensity during certain scenes leaving the reader at the edge of their seat. These characters are well developed and easy to get to know. This is a book I will most definitely be telling everyone I can to read.

"From the New York Times-bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame comes the first book in a hotly-anticipated fantasy duology teeming with romance and revenge, led by an orphan girl willing to do whatever it takes to save her self-made kingdom.

On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by night, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it--she can't do the job alone.

Calling on some of the city's most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the sinister, glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. Dark, action-packed, and swoonworthy, this is Hafsah Faizal better than ever."

THE BOOK I've literally been hearing about everywhere.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free eARC in exchange for a fair review.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it's a gorgeously outfitted fantasy world with amazing, complicated characters with the whole spectrum of gray morality. I also think the writing was very frenetic and sometimes difficult to parse.

Overall, I think this is going to be a very well received YA fantasy. It has all the right beats: vampires, heists, professional criminals, tea, and very nice romantic teases. The world-building is solid, though I feel like I would have understood it better with the foundation of reading We Hunt the Flame, which I have yet to do. There was some really masterful foreshadowing of a later twist; while I had sort of predicted the twist early on, I was starting to wonder if I was right until the pieces slowly started to lay themselves out before me and vindicated my gut feeling, which was very well done.

I did struggle sometimes with the writing. I remember re-reading the first paragraph or so three times because I wasn't entirely sure what it was saying, and I'm not sure if that was a me problem of having a bad comprehension day, or if there really was something off. There's a lot of exposition at the beginning of the story that comes off as a bit clunky. The descriptions of the characters seem a bit forced rather than worked into the story, and even at that point I didn't realize that Arthie has mauve hair until about halfway through the book (though that could have been me skipping words. I tend to do that in ebooks.)

Despite that, however, this is a solid fantasy that I think teens are really going to love, and I'm definitely putting the sequel on my TBR.

A Tempest of Tea is a Peaky Blindersesque heist story about a tea shop owner who uses dangerous secrets to her advantage in a country that is perpetually gray and vampires are commonplace in society.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillian for the chance to read and review this book. While I was initially excited to read this book based off the premise, I can only give this book 3 stars as it was ultimately disappointing.

This book, while written very descriptively and did a good job with world building, suffers from pacing problems and a lack of quality characters. In fact the only character that I cared about was Jin the right hand man of the female main character, Arthie. This book is about a heist, but at no point were all of the participants of the heist ever really thrown together after the first initial meeting. Not enough time was spent developing several of the characters and the time that was spent developing Arthie felt wasted. I contemplated DNF'ing this book several times and made it to the actual heist around 65-70% of the way through the book, but by that point it was too little too late and I no longer cared what happened. I did finish this book, but would not recommend it to others and wont be recommending it on my social media (TikTok and YouTube) and would not be interested in a sequel.

I must be honest, I DNF’d this at a little past 30%. It’s possible that I will attempt to return to it at a later date, as I do think the book has an interesting premise and a lot of potential. The idea of a tearoom that caters to vampires after hours is a really fun one, but I was disappointed that despite being the thing that the plot revolves around we see extremely little of The Spindrift. I found the prose to be quite lovely at times but then I would get jarred out of the reading experience by the actions of the characters (for instance at one point the protagonist abruptly leaves a conversation almost mid thought, walks up the stairs to grab and hat and then walks back down the stairs to continue the conversation. Arthie and Lin will have private talks with one another, but at a table with three other people present who would undoubtedly still be able to hear every word). I will still order this title for the shop, as I think ultimately it will sell pretty well but sadly it just did not mesh with me personally

I love Hafsah Faizal, but I wasn’t really into this book. There’s a lot of info dumping and when we get to the climax it was really anticlimactic. The concept was unique and the world was nothing like I’ve read before, which is what kept me engaged with the book.

It’s not even out yet, and already I’m craving the sequel the way the vampires within its pages crave blood. Seriously, that ending?!? A delightful heist novel with the very best of vibes and outfits, A Tempest of Tea isn’t just a story, but an immersive sensory experience that will keep you guessing even with its last sentence (so many twists!). A beautifully rendered commentary on who society deems worthy embedded within a pacey, fun, and ultimately heart-healing YA. I adored Arthie, Jin, Flick, and Matteo and the family they created in the hardest of life circumstances. Plus, a little steam never hurt anyone (or did it?).

Now, I normally don't tend to read books that feature vampires, as they're normally not my jam, but when I saw that this book is coming out soon, I thought I'd give it a try. And I've got to say, I really enjoyed it. The vampires are part of the world that this book is set in, but they're not the main focus. Also, I felt like this book was a fast paced read, and I also enjoyed that it was a heist book, which I don't think I've read in a very long time. It was action packed, and there were a couple of surprising twists at the end that were very surprising (in a good way). Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to purchasing a copy when it comes out next month.

Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan for the ARC! A Tempest of Tea was fast paced, had interesting twists and turns, and a great setting! It was a great blending of vampires, gangs, and action. I personally did not fall head over heels for all the characters, although I was engaged enough with them to get into the heist plotline. Some characters are broody, some mask their feelings with wit, and my personal favorite was the not-exactly-awkward and very competent forger, Flick. Information was revealed about the main characters throughout the book, and there was some initial development in them over the course of the story. It sets up nicely for the sequel! I will certainly be recommending this to YA fantasy fans, particularly those who enjoyed Six of Crows.

Chef’s kiss🤌🏾. This book was amazing from beginning to end. I’m a big fan of tea in general. So I loved the idea of Artie and Jin running a tearoom that moonlights as a blood house at night! I also loved the characters; they were very balanced and interesting. Finally, the twists and turns, especially the ending, left me wanting more!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced copy of A Tempest of Tea in exchange for a review.
I don’t even know how to begin to describe this book, it was just such a fun whirlwind of a read. The first half takes its time setting up the characters and the setting, which I appreciated although it did make it a little bit hard for me to focus at times. The second half though, that made all the build up worth it. Seriously, what a fun ride! The characters really shine, Flick was my personal favorite. I don’t want to go into spoilers because I desperately need people to read this when it comes out. The discussions will be so fun! Also, I never read We Hunt the Flame, but I definitely need to do that because Hafsah Faizal has such a way with words! Five stars easy peasy.

While this book was a bit hard for me to get into at first, it definitely rewards persistence and becomes an immersive delight once it truly gets going. Faizal is clearly a genius at generating thrilling, magical worlds, and this book is no different.

If there's someone out there who isn't sold on the concept of 'vampire teahouse heist book with Peaky Blinders vibes," I don't want to meet them. I was utterly charmed by this book from its description (and its FABULOUS cover). Arthie and Jin won me over quickly, and I read quickly to see what twists and turns lay in store. The secondary characters are equally compelling -- to the point that I'm surprised by some early reviewers who didn't feel connected to the crew! To my eye, the pacing of the novel is just right as it careens toward a high-stakes heist while pausing to outline an increasingly complex political scene. The book has a lot to say about hunger and consumption, about race and gender, and about extractive capitalism. Faizal is an exciting writer, and I'm ready to pick up her previous books while I wait for the conclusion of this duology!

I feel like I've been waiting for this book my whole life and really it's just been barely over two years😂 I loved the Sands of Arawiya duology and when I heard about the premise of this book and who was writing it I knew it was going to make my top of whatever year I was able to get my hands on it! And boy was I right. VAMPIRES??? Peaky blinders vibes??? It was perfect. turned the last page and a single perfect tear cascaded down my face because it was just everything. I can't even be coherent about it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read this book. I wanted to love this so much but in the end it was kind of eh. I didn't feel like the plot actually got moving until more than halfway through the book. The last 2% was more interesting than the rest of it. Nothing about the vampire topic was necessarily new, and there's plenty of backstabbing or mystery involved, but so much gets revealed in those last couple of chapters that had I been emotionally invested at any point before that, it would have hooked me through to what I assume is going to be a second book.

Overall I found this one flat and not that interesting.

This book is set in the same world as Faizal's Sands of Arawiya duology, but you don't need to read those books to get something out of this one. This one has a very different vibe (vampires) than those books, but if you like her writing style, you will enjoy this, and if you are looking for an original vampire story, try this one.

I was really hoping to love this, but for me it was just good, not great. The premise is amazing - a tearoom that doubles as a vampire bloodhouse and a Six of Crows-esque heist involving an eccentric cast of characters.

There were some characters I really enjoyed such as Arthie and Matteo, but also some I didn’t care about as much, and unfortunately one of them had their own POV. The love triangle situation was a little odd, but I liked how it played out in the end and am excited to see more of it in the next book.

I didn’t really get hooked until the last 15% when the twists just kept coming. I think the next book has the potential to be a lot better and I’ll definitely be reading it. Be warned there’s a pretty wild cliffhanger!

Thank you to Macmillan for the ARC!