Final Rating:
Date of Completion: 08/03/2024
Published by: Macmillan
ISBN: B0CMXZBP4B
Cover:
I love the striking contrast between the pastel colours of the illustration and the black background of this design. The illustration also brilliantly captures major aspects of the story and hints at the mystery and danger within.
Writing:
Although the third-person narrative initially made it hard for me to immerse myself in this story, I was impressed by the captivating, vivid descriptions that effortlessly brought the characters and world to life. I was also fascinated by the intriguing and creative world that was established. However, I struggled with the clunky worldbuilding information dumps and wished some concepts, like the tea house, had been better developed.
fear became hate when it festered long enough.
Storyline:
After a slow start introducing key characters and the setting, a character-driven storyline centred on planning and executing a heist unfolds. Once things picked up, constant bursts of action and complex themes such as loss, loneliness and colonialism kept the storyline interesting and the stakes high. The dramatic/ cliffhanger ending also piqued my interest in the next book despite the underwhelming betrayals and twists in the climax.
Main character(s):
Arthie Casimir is a fierce and clever criminal mastermind whose complex struggles are gradually detailed throughout the story. While this brought some complexity to her character and eventually made it easy to understand the anger that drives her, it took most of the story for me to connect with Arthie as most of her characterisation is mainly told, not shown.
It’s easy to look at the errors of a few and blame an entire kind
Secondary characters:
The mismatched crew selected by Arthie were given distinct personalities, quirks and backstories that brought some complexity to their characters and made a few endearing. Their secrets and dynamics were also cleverly used to drive the storyline and made it more entertaining. A few other secondary characters pop in and out of the story and help add depth to the narrative, but I did not find these memorable.
Romance:
Arthie finds herself in a painfully forced triangle, with one connection slightly developed as the characters spend time together and the other being little more than attraction. Truthfully, I was more invested in a separate romance that develops between two secondary characters, as they had more chemistry and cute moments.
Every good love story starts with a bullet to the heart.
Narration & Audio:
The absence of character voices and vocal variety in the narration by Maya Saroya did little to enrich this story. However, I loved the conversation about the story between Hafsah Faizal and her husband at the end of the audiobook.
All in all, I cannot deny that ‘A Tempest of Tea’ gives a strong Six of Crow vibe, but the execution made it less compelling. I highly recommend the Six of Crow duology by Leigh Bardugo for a similar heist series with a complex character crew.
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