Book Review: Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

Title: Can't Spell Treason without Tea

Author: Rebecca Thorne

Genre: Fantasy

ARC: Audiobook

Series: Tomes and Tea 

Book in Series: Book 1

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

My Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:

All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea.  Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters all complemented by love and good company.Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen's private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence.  Leaving their lives isn't so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she's throughly done risking her life for a self centered queen.  Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility- all the better that her girlfriend is on board.  Togther they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.

What follows is a cozy tale of mishap, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm's biggest temper tantrum.  

My Thoughts:

I am giving this book 4 stars, because I was intiruged that it took place around the time of dragons.  The rest of the story not so much.  It sounded like a bunch of  high school  students, dealing with high school drama.  I am not into fantasy books, or romance maybe that with why I feel the way I do about this.  

My rating is 4 stars

About the Author:

Rebecca Thorne is an author of all things fantasy, sci-fi, and romantic.  She is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, hails from sunny Arizona, and uses her ADHD as a superpower to write multiple books a year.

When she is not writing, Rebecca can be found traveling the country as a flight attendant, hiking with her dogs, or basking in the sun like a lizard.

 

The Bishop and The Butterfly

Title: The Bishop and The Butterfly

Author: Michael Wolriach

Genre: History/ True Crime

ARC: Audiobook

Publisher: Dreamscape Media

Publication Date: February 6, 2024

My Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis: 

Vivian Goardon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat.  Her body turned up the next morning in a desolates Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names-businessmen, socialites, gangsters.  And something else: a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commisssion had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes.  Had Vivian Gordon been excuted to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham's powerful machine--the infamous Tammary Hall.

My Thoughts:

While I enjoy a true crime book as much as the next person, I have to say I was very disappointed with this book.  There was entirely to much detail in this book.  There was a lot of details that went into to much explanations.  

Again it was interesting but I became really bored with this after I listened to about 40 percent of the book.  I am giving this 3 stars.

About the Author:

Michael Wolraich is the critically acclaimed author of The Bishoop and the Butterfly (2024), Unreasonable Men (2014), and Blowing Smoke( 2010).  His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Reuters, and CNN.  Wolraich grew up in Iowa and graduated froms Williams College in Massachuetts before falling in love with New York City, where he has lived since 2000.