New Treasures: Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
 |
 |
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea (Bramble, May 7, 2024). Cover by Irene Huang
I had a few bucks in my pocket during my last trip to Barnes & Noble last week, and came home with some magazines and two books: a handsome reprint of The Black Prism by Brent Weeks, and the breakout cozy fantasy by Rebecca Thorne, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea.
I’d love to be able to tell you what I thought of Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea. Unfortunately, I can’t. My son stole it. He stayed up reading all night last Saturday. He hasn’t done that since he was eleven.
A Pirate’s Life for Tea (Tomes & Tea #2), coming October 1, 2024
I did at least get a breathless review of the book (“It was great!”), so at least there’s that. A little internet sleuthing turned up the sequel, A Pirate’s Life for Tea, which is coming in October, so I’ll have one more crack at this series. Though I may bring that one home in a paper bag.
Until I get this book returns to my hot little hands, I’m forced to fall back on online reviews to give you a decent assessment. Fortunately. there’s plenty of delighted chatter out there. Here’s an excerpt from Caitlin G.’s review at Fantasy Book Critic.
After preventing yet another assassination of a queen she can’t stand, Reyna’s decided she’s had enough. It’s time to agree to what her girlfriend Kianthe, a powerful mage, has been wanting for months: to leave the palace life behind, move to a town in the middle of nowhere, and open up a tea shop.
But building the shop might be the easiest part of their new adventure. For one thing, both Reyna and Kianthe have to work through some things, like finding a healthy work/life balance. For another, both of their old lives refuse to let them go, as Reyna’s queen declares Reyna a traitor and Kianthe’s magic pulls her to save people from danger…
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is a charming little story, though it occasionally pushes the bounds of what is typically considered cozy fantasy. You’ll find a lot of the usual tropes of cozy fantasy here, with a lot of focus on renovating a building, establishing a new shop, developing a community, and pursuing activities in life that bring you joy… Reyna and Kianthe are trying to find their dream life, running a small little tea and bookshop. They build their business from the ground up, begin to connect with their new neighbors, and gradually carve out a new home. But that journey isn’t without its trials and tribulations…
If you’re a sucker for the fantasy small business trope (as I am), this story is well-worth your time.
Read the whole thing here.
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea was published by Bramble on May 7, 2024. It is 339 pages, priced at $19.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The beautiful cover is by Irene Huang.
See all our recent New Treasures here.
I hadn’t even heard of “cozy fantasy” as a genre, though I can sort of guess what it may be like. Who else is writing it? And does it have any older antecedents, from, say, back in the twentieth?
Bill,
Great question! Cozy fantasy is a new label to me, too. I suspect the hit novel Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree likely falls in the same category. And maybe The House at the Edge of Magic by Amy Sparkes.
In terms of 20th Century antecedents, I think the light comedic fantasy of Robert Asprin (especially his Myth Adventure books) and Harry Harrison (Bill, the Galactic Hero) probably sowed the ground for modern Cozy Fantasy. But I’m not an expert.
It’s definitely a “new” genre. As far as I can tell, it has been a natural outgrowth of the meeting point between urban fantasy (Seanan McGuire; Casey Daniels; Charmaine Harris; Lisa Shearin; Yasmine Galenorn; Carrie Vaughn; Lyn Benedict; Benedict Jacka; Matteson Wynn; Annette Marie), paranormal romance (Cleo Coyle; Jayne Anne Krentz; Janet Chapman; Kristen Painter), and cozy mysteries (Laura Childs; Diane Mott Davidson; Amy McNulty; Victoria Tait), facilitated by the “rapid protoyping” that self-published serialization of litRPG (Haylock Jobson; Shirtaloon; Xander Boyce; Benjamin Kerel; Seth Ring; John Broadway; Erin Ampersand; Jaime Castle; Troy Osgood; Matthew Howry; etc. Etc. ETC!) has driven to prolific maturity through platforms like RoyalRoad. It’s populated by a flourishing number of authors, at the moment, and is characterized by storylines that “stay still” or facilitate quests rather than actually quest/journey. S. Usher Evans, Kim M. Watt, JollyJupiter, Drew Hayes (sort of– look at his “Fred the Vampire Accountant” middle period), Leigh Perry have all written works in cozy fantasy, and Travis Baldtree is definitely the quintessential cozy fantasy author at this time, as J O’N notes.
But older than the last five years? Oof. You could *maybe* consider some of Christopher Stascheff’s, Jim C. Hines’, and H. Jonas Rhynedahll’s books as prototypical cozy fantasy… but only in the same way you’d call Stephenson’s “Snowcrash,” Anthony’s “Killobyte,” and Heydt’s “A Point of Honor” prototypical GameLit.
…That was fun. I had to visit every bookshelf in my house to dig up all of those names. 😀
I’m glad you had fun, at least. That list tells me fairly conclusively that I’m unfamiliar not only with the genre but with its antecedents: I recognized exactly two of the names in your first paragraph, and neither of them is on my shelves. I do have books that I would call urban fantasy by Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Fritz Leiber (all the way back to Conjure Wife!), and Jo Walton—and perhaps James Schmitz’s outer space fantasy The Witches of Karres has something of a “cozy” element?
Yeah… I heard someone in the bookstore grouch that “Cozy fantasy is making chick-lit acceptable for guys.” That’s not a fair characterization, but I can see where the person was coming from, given that most of the precedent genres are dominated by female authorship and readership. They’re not as much read by traditional mystery and fantasy fans, probably because they take a much greater capacity for suspension of disbelief about human (and parahuman) nature.
Haven’t read Schmitz’s “The Witches of Karres,” but looking at the synopsis I agree, it could have cozy fantasy elements. It depends on how much the book trends toward facilitating the three witches as little girls. How many scenes concern making sure they get to go to school (example) and how many scenes are fantastic space battles? If the ratio is 1+:1 or greater, there’s a good chance of it being “cozy.” Bonus points in the “cozy” category if the teacher interrupts the space battle to yell at both the captain and the attacking forces because all of the shaking and laser fire is distracting the students from their lesson.