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Gotta Have Tea with Your Treason

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Patricia Elzie-Tuttle

Contributing Editor

Patricia Elzie-Tuttle is a writer, podcaster, librarian, and information fanatic who appreciates potatoes in every single one of their beautiful iterations. Patricia earned a B.A. in Creative Writing and Musical Theatre from the University of Southern California and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Her weekly newsletter, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice offers self-improvement and mental health advice, essays, and resources that pull from her experience as a queer, Black, & Filipina person existing in the world. She is also doing the same on the Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Podcast. More of her written work can also be found in Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen, and, if you’re feeling spicy, in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Patricia has been a Book Riot contributor since 2016 and is currently co-host of the All the Books! podcast and one of the weekly writers of the Read This Book newsletter. She lives in Oakland, CA on unceded Ohlone land with her wife and a positively alarming amount of books. Find her on her Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkTree.

Welcome to Read This Book, where I recommend one book that should absolutely be put at the top of your TBR pile. Recommended books will vary across genre and age category and include shiny new books, older books you may have missed, and some classics I suggest finally getting around to. Make space for another pile of books on your floor because here we go!

Today’s pick is a cozy fantasy sapphic romance perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes.

Book cover of Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

Reyna is one of the Queen’s personal guards and comes from a long line of women who did the same work. Queen Tilaine is known for being merciless and has more than a few enemies, so the assassin at the Queen’s party was not unexpected. Reyna has dealt with assassins before, being a trained and quite adept killer, but the assassin at this party comes very close to taking Reyna’s life and the ruthless Queen would have easily let them. This was the final straw for Reyna so she commits treason by running away. Of course, she doesn’t quite have a fully fleshed-out plan but there is one thing that is certain: Kianthe, Reyna’s secret girlfriend who is also the most powerful mage to exist.

Kianthe absolutely abhors Queen Tilaine and has been begging Reyna to run away with her to open a bookstore and tea shop and live a comfortable little life. Kianthe herself has been looking for every excuse to shirk her mage duties as the Arcandor. After Reyna has escaped and Kianthe finds her with the help of the pair of moonstones she had enchanted, the two set out to put their dreams into reality. They settle in Tawny, a small town on the outskirts of the Queendom and in the icy tundra next to dragon country. Even with fake names and enough money to get things going, they have a steep path ahead of them as they try to win the townspeople over. Of course, there are also the issues of Reyna’s injuries from the assassin, the bandits who continue to visit the building that Reyna and Kianthe had commandeered, and the dragon attacks.

This book had just enough action to keep me interested, enough tea and books to keep me soothed, and enough puns to make me giggle frequently. It’s a lovely escapist read for anyone looking to get away from reality for a bit.

That’s it for now, book-lovers!

Patricia

Find me on Book Riot, the All the Books podcast, Bluesky, and Instagram.

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