Sunday, January 29, 2023

A Coup of Tea - Tea Princess Chronicles #1


A Coup of Tea is the first book in a YA fantasy romance series by Casey Blair. Originally published in 2017, this reformat and re-release, out 2nd Aug 2022 is 324 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a cozy riches-to-rags princess fantasy set in a pastiche Asian world. Princess Miyara runs away from her royal life with basically the clothes on her back and washes up in another town, working in a tea shop. It's a sweetly romantic fantasy and will appeal to a young(ish) audience. There are positive female and non-binary portrayals. The book is mostly character driven and it's not a high stress/drama filled read. Reading comfort food. 

There are three books in the series plus a few shorter stories already published. It's the product of a kickstarter backed project (not traditional in-house publishing), so the book could likely have benefited from a more thorough editing/polishing process; but it's perfectly readable and entertaining in this form. 

Four stars. For fans of The House Witch and Miss Percy, there's a lot of similar comforting female positive fantasy here as well. Eminently readable. Probably mostly appealing to YA/NA readers. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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