Ask a bookseller

Ask a Bookseller: ‘Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea’ by Rebecca Thorne

Ask a Bookseller Podcast
Ask a Bookseller
MPR

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.


If you love a good cozy romance or fantasy — romantasy, anyone? — then Charlotte Klimek of Hearthside Books in Watertown, Minn., has the perfect book for you.

You get a good sense of the genre from the title alone; it’s “Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea” by Rebecca Thorne.

A book cover
“Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea” by Rebecca Thorne.
Courtesy of Bramble

Kianthe is the world’s most powerful mage, but all she really wants to do is read a book. What she’d really like to do is leave court life behind and open a tea and bookshop with her girlfriend, Reyna, who serves as a private guard to the Queen.

Finally fed up by the self-centered monarch, Reyna agrees, and the two head to a small town to open the cozy shop of their dreams. Yes, this does mean Reyna has committed treason, and, yes, the Queen swears revenge.

Brimming with fireside conversations, witty banter, and memorable fantastical side characters, “Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea” is perfect for fans of Travis Baldree’s “Legends & Lattes” and “Bookshops & Bonedust.”

The book was published in the UK last year but has not been available in print in the U.S. until this week.