Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

by Rebecca Thorne

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 thoroughly 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. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra of dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.

What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other… and the world.

Rebecca Thorne’s Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is unashamedly inspired by Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes, tapping into the same “stone-cold badass decides to settle down and serve hot drinks” vein. Reyna is one of the queen’s elite bodyguards, but after a serious incident in which she nearly gets killed in the process of protecting her queen — a queen who is clearly psychopathic — she decides to listen to her girlfriend’s suggestions and run off to run a bookshop/teashop somewhere the queen won’t find them for a while.

This is all somewhat stymied by her girlfriend Kianthe being the most important mage in her country, if not the world, and also as a result effectively a foreign diplomat. Needless to say, they can’t settle into total obscurity: Reyna’s battle prowess is quickly obvious, as is Kianthe’s ability as a mage.

Because of the psychopathic queen and the action scenes, this doesn’t quite fit into the same niche as Legends & Lattes, to my mind. Reyna hasn’t really put down her sword so much as decided to stop serving that queen, which is really not the same. It also feels a lot “younger”, perhaps because things are very black-and-white: the queen is obviously a monster, from a line of monsters; Reyna’s old partner in the guard is a bit slimy and definitely after her body; Kianthe is at times a bit of a sullen teenager about her power and how it marks her out without making people care for her as a person (and even obscuring who she is as a person). It doesn’t reckon very well with Reyna’s probable trauma or even with Kianthe’s anxiety (though we see her having panic attacks, it doesn’t feel like they get addressed very seriously).

It also focuses a bit more on the romance aspect, and a lot less on the practicalities of putting together a shop and drawing in customers, compared to Legends & Lattes. All in all, it feels like some of the themes and framings of YA, and it left things feeling less complex. That’s not a bad thing if that’s what you’re interested in reading, to be clear — but it could be disappointing for those who really just want another Legends & Lattes, and I found it a mite unsatisfying.

There is an ongoing plot as well which will clearly continue through at least another book, so there’s that as well. That’s an opportunity for some of the things I’ve mentioned to change/develop, and I’m curious enough about the characters and world to read it.

Overall, I had a fun time, without falling in love with it.

Rating: 3/5