Book Review: Blood and Tea #1

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

Publication Date: February 20, 2024

Summary from Goodreads:

Confession:

“Family isn’t who we live with but those we would die for.”

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the premise of the story, especially the teahouse that becomes a bloodhouse at night, but nothing ever really meshed for me. The story was just ok, and although I liked the characters and the found family vibes, there just wasn’t enough growth in them for me to truly ever love them or root for them.

There are five main characters, but only three points of view. Arthie is the main character and I think gets the most page time. I liked her, but I also didn’t like her, she was a bit bland and cold most of the time. Her head space was also a bit confusing at times. I really liked Jin and Flick’s points of view. They both added a bit of comedy to the story. Their budding romance was also fun to watch. I really would have liked to see part of the story from Laith and Mateo’s points of view, as they both seemed to have feelings for Arthie, but that was also a bit confusing at times. None of the characters ever felt fully developed to me. They were all just sort of there, and didn’t bring anything to the story. They never felt like they had any kind of depth to them or personality either. I often had to check the chapter headings to make sure I knew whose point of view we were seeing.

The writing at times was beautiful. There were quite a few times where I was amazed by how things were described. But for the most part I felt the writing was mostly underwhelming. There was entirely too much going on plot wise and I often found myself getting lost and confused as to what was going on. I expect this a bit with a heist story, but this one was just too much. The pacing was also pretty slow throughout most of the book, until close to the end and then it was a mad dash to that cliffhanger ending. There were a few twists to the story that were good, but also a little confusing. Twists in stories are good, but there should be some sort of foreshadowing to them as well.

There is a pretty long wait for the next book, and I am very undecided as to whether or not I will be reading it. I might forget how I felt about this first book enough to pick up the second one, but I probably won’t. There are quite a few people who think this was a solidly good book, so please take a look at those reviews before deciding if you want to read this or not. I’m not sure I could say I recommend this one, but I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from giving it a chance. It has some good bones, it just needed more fleshing out.