A very charming story! It isn't quite as cozy as advertised, as I thought the stakes were pretty high, but I still enjoyed it. I liked Reyna and Kianthe's relationship, and honestly I did really like that it was already established! I think I disagree a bit that it is for fans of Legends and Lattes, but it does have some very lush descriptions of food and drink that I really enjoyed.

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

Reyna is the private guard for a cruel queen. Kianthe is the most powerful mage in the world. They love each other. When Reyna has yet another near-death scrape with no respect or gratitude, that's it--she flees, and with Kianthe, they set up shop in a remote border village to create the tea-and-bookstore of their dreams. There are bandits to consider. That the squabbling local leaders. And the dragons that keep threatening to burn down the town. But through it all. Reyna and Kianthe's love is the constant.

The love story at the center of this is cute. I mean, this book is as formulaic and cozy as they come. I really enjoyed that aspect, and the village and the townspeople. The whole vibe is just lovely. What drove me bonkers, though, and kept jolting me out of the coziness was the worldbuilding. It just didn't make sense. A lot of emphasis was placed on the food and drink they were making, because that was a major part of the cozy vibe. This medieval culture was making things that didn't make sense. Yeah, yeah, I know, I should let it go, like enjoying a big turkey leg at a Renaissance Fair, but after researching this stuff extensively for my own books, it's really hard when it's not just one thing that doesn't make sense, but everything. Where are these supplies coming from? How are they eating these foods in THIS season? What about their winter stores? Do you realize how much butter goes into croissants--and that they didn't exist until the 19th century, which is weirdly out of step even in this secondary world? How do these people know what vanilla smells like?! Cocoa?!

I think most people wouldn't even notice these things, but for me they were like a flock of mosquitoes.

thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for a review!

usually my arc reviews are pretty long. but this book took me so long that i'm going to keep it short. i was bored. maybe its time to admit established relationship isn't my thing lol

When I saw that this story was being compared to TJ Klune and Legends and Lattes I knew I needed to get my hands on it and I am so glad that I did!

I can’t remember the last time I read a full synopsis of a book and am so happy I went into this one blind. I have heard from some that it's not as cozy as they anticipated but I felt it was the perfect amount. There is mystery and a small town and characters you are going to love!

“Run away with me. You like tea. I like books. Care to open a shop and forget the world exists.”

I have dreams about my wife saying this to me regularly. This is my dream and I lived vicariously through Reyna and Kianthe to my heart's content. I loved both characters and the way they balanced one another. I loved that Kianthe is more sarcastic and takes risks and Reyna is more cautious and sweet. I loved they way the cared for one another. Trust me when I say that they are really going to make you swoon in the best way!

“I want you to feel loved without earning it. Because that’s how you make me feel every Stone-damned day.”

More and more I am loving the small town vibes in books. There are characters in the town of Tawney that surprise you and a community feel that I wish I had in real life! They are weird and things happen that they all work together to solve and I loved that. It gave me such a cozy feeling and a big smile on my face.

I also really enjoyed the fantasy and mystery elements and felt it was the perfect blend to make the story engaging and fun. I absolutely devoured the ending and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series!

This is the perfect book to cozy up with and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me.

The marketing material compared this to Legends and Latte's which was a 5 star read for me. I expected a cozy, sapphic story with found family, tea and witty conversations, but that didn't live up to the expectations. I didn't feel any romance or passion between our two FMCs, Reyna and Kianthe. There are dragons and illnesses and an unlikeable queen, which keeps the story from being a truly cozy one, in the vein of Legends and Lattes.

Sadly, I was just bored by this book. I even tried the audiobook and kept falling asleep. Reyna and Kianthe both run from their lives to open a tea shop /book store together. That’s pretty much it. Oh there are some dragons but they are just misunderstood. Will the Queen find Reyna and make her return to her guard duties? That is the biggest tense moment. No real romantic tension. Kianthe was just kind of whiny. I will not be reading book two. There is such a thing as too cozy!
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a cute cozy fantasy book. It’s also boring as fuck. More than 400 pages and not a single thing of consequence happened. Even the supposedly high stakes precarity of their new hidden life was dull.

I love a good cozy story, and certainly, if you want a cozy story with cute descriptions, a happy story where star-crossed lovers build their happily-ever after, discussions of tea blends and making friends, great! This is for you! But if you expect literally anything to happen with any kind of depth, you will be disappointed. This dragged for me so very much.

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 that boasts more dragons than people, 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.

This book is being suggested as "If you like Legends & Lattes..." and, although there is some similarities, this has a completely different vibe. There are truly life or death consequences, but the stakes for most of the book don't seem that high. The queen is a standard villain, she would twirl a mustache if she had one. I also have many questions about the dragon attacks.
As it is, I did enjoy this book. I expected everything to be okay at the end and I suppose that it is. There will be more in the series, though, so I hope the payoff is worth the wait.

Reyna is one of the closest bodyguards of the queen, Kianthe is the most powerful mage. They are in love but life and work keep them apart. After a near death experience, Reyna decides to commit treason and flee the palace to spend the rest of her life with Kianthe. Kianthe has begged Reyna to run away with her and open a bookshop that serves tea so now that Reyna has taken this leap of faith to leave the queen’s side, the two have decided to move forward with this seemingly unattainable dream. In the small quiet town of Tawny the ladies have set up shop and thought things were going their way. Life certainly doesn’t stop though and as each of their pasts start to catch up to them, it puts their relationship to the test.

Cute. That’s the short review. Truly I wished this book was more cozy and less romance. I knew there was love and romance in the book but I feel it is misrepresented as a “cozy fantasy steeped in love”. It was a romance book set in a fantasy world with cozy moments. That’s not to say the book isn’t good, it’s just not my cup of tea (ah, ah?! Get it??). Anyway, I enjoyed the supporting cast of characters and the relationships built between all of them. The cozy parts were my favorite. Overall, I would give this 3/5 stars. I may read the second book in the series but will go into it with different expectations.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I haven’t read legends and lattes yet so I have nothing compare in this new genre cosy fantasy. But I think I like it here.

It took me a while to get used, but I didn’t want to stop reading. I really loved the gentle pace, it felt so relaxing and I didn’t realise that it was just what I needed.


Initially I wasn’t sure how I would rate this book because it was so different to what I normally read, but the characters grew on me. At times I wish the personality of the character you see by the end of the story shines through a bit earlier.

I really liked the way you could follow these two characters living the dream of fleeing the busy tough life to a quieter, peaceful life in a cute little bookstore with a little bit of magic. Maybe this type of book being so popular says a lot about today’s society but that’s a discussion for another day.

The books gentle pacing, good description forces the reader to slow down and take a break from the everyday world.

I now want to go live my dream now of opening a bookstore with a cute cafe and mythical creatures and magical plants.

Is the book perfect? No. But it’s a book that I needed. I loved the relationship of the two characters, and the side characters they meet. Would I like more… yes… but is that me being used to read so much more fast action paced books … probably.


I still don’t know how to rate it but I enjoyed it

3.5 stars

This book was strongly marketed with the lines “perfect for fans of Legends& Lattes” and things like that. I lost count of how many times I read the comparison between the two. But I think that this is a disservice to this one. Sure, they are the same genre, and there are similarities between them. I am the first to say that one of my favorite things in Legends & Lattes was seeing the MC building her cafè from zero. It was one of the best things in the book (in a book full of amazing things), and here, in Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, seeing the two MCs building their bookshop/teashop, seeing how they put a lot of attention in the details, how the create something new from zero, or almost zero, and how happy they are about seeing their “creature” growing, it was amazing! So, sure, there are similarities.
But what I loved the most about Legends&Lattes, and what I think most people loved, reading the reviews, were the vibes. It is a low stake, almost as low as they go, and the whole book has a distinctive and unique vibe.
And you won’t find it in Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea. In this, they are quite different. Here we don’t really have low stakes. Sure, it is not a high stakes book, mind me, but the MCs have a lot more concerns than building their love nest and their new future. The external world intrudes way more here, and we have also more action, even if the book is still a cozy fantasy, and the coziness is there, the vibes are really different.

When I started this book, I was drawn by the comparison, and for the first 30% of it, given or taken, I was bored and I wasn’t reading something that I didn’t really want to read at the moment. It was not what I was promised! But slowly my interest grew, and I was curious to see what would happen next. And, always slowly, I grew affectionate toward Reyna and Kianthe. They are both bad-ass, they are strong-willed and powerful. Resourceful, too, and brilliant. But they are also kind, and caring, and I loved to see how they start to make friends with the people of the village. It was so cozy and so heartwarming. And I particularly loved their involvement with the two political figures of the small town (or village, or whatever). These two were also my favorite characters, and I wanted to see more of them around!

Following them around, when they started their new project, this amazing bookshop and teashop was amazing. And it was so cozy! And the same goes for their slowly becoming part of the community. I loved it! But that’s not all there is to this book. Because Reyna is a former guard for the (evil) queen of the nearby reign, and she hasn’t really resigned from her previous job, since resignement from the queen seems to have to happen in only one way: your death. (Be that by the hand of an enemy, or by the hand of the Queen herself). So you can imagine all sorts of problems this creates for our characters. And Kianthe is the highest and most powerful of the mages, and she can’t just disappear from the radar and be done with the world. Her position comes with a ton of responsibilities, and she just cannot shed them all.
So we have the outer world intruding, in more ways than one. And that’s not all. Because the small town has a problem. Or a couple of them. One is bandits, and the solution to this one is brilliant, and I loved it! But this was the smaller of the two. The other one is… dragons. (And yes, we have dragons here, yay!). They are attacking the village (not so yay!), and it is not nice to be under attack, in general, and even less nice when the attackers are enraged dragons. Our two MCs have not only to engage with their past and their responsibilities, but they need to find out why the dragons keep coming back, and try to find a solution. Hence, as you can see, we have some stakes in there, not only making peace with the past, and creating something beautiful and nice for your future.

In the beginning, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book, that’s true, but slowly I started to know better the two women, and I loved to see them being part of a new community. Their arrival at the village helped the people there start to hope again, in a sense, it helped them feel again like part of a community, especially since the two resolved the problem with the bandits. And I enjoyed the banter, the humor, and the cozy feelings. And we have dragons, too! And griffon! I loved Visk, and I loved even more seeing him starting to build something too, as to say. It was nice, and griffons and dragons are cool! The romance part is also sweet, but my favorite things here were the secondary characters and the growing sense of community. I really enjoyed it!

Ahoy there mateys! I be in the minority with this one as it has 4 and 5 star reviews all over the place.  I tried to finish this multiple times and stopped at 26%.  I had many issues with this book.  The first is that the world building was so light.  I don't always care about this but for undefinable reasons it bugged me because I couldn't get a sense of how the world worked or the politics of the place.  The setting just did not feel real.  I also didn't like the characters very much.  There was no real chemistry with the two women despite the PDA.  Kianthe in particular irked me and seemed selfish.  I felt that both characters were naïve despite their supposedly tough backgrounds.  At times it seemed like I was reading about teens and not about grown women.  I was not cheering on anyone by the time I stopped reading.  I also thought the plot was rather slow to develop.  The more I thought about the plot and set-up the less it made sense.  Apparently this is the first book in a trilogy.  I read some spoilers for the next book and it does not sound good even with pirates and dragons.  Glad I stopped there.  Arrr!

Considering the description and contents of this book, I really feel like I should like it. Sapphic sword lady and hot wizard woman run away together to open a bookstore? Sign me up! But no matter how far I got in this book, I couldn't bring myself to like it. The characters, particularly Kianthe, felt extremely selfish. I dislike her SO much. I can't quite put a finger on why, but I couldn't stand her as a character. I like Reyna, and the rest of the townsfolk, but had to drag myself through Kianthe's chapters. I also couldn't get over the handwaive-y-ness of their shop situation. Maybe it's because I'm a bookseller, but I couldn't help going "it's not that easy! you can't do that!" This book is meant for people that want to run away from their corporate jobs to open a bookstore, not booksellers (and baristas) that know how difficult it is in reality. While I do think this book would work for other people, it just wasn't the right fit for me. Cozy fantasy just isn't my genre.

This was my second time reading Can't Spell Treason Without Tea and I still love it! I'm so excited that Bramble picked this up and I can't wait to see how the series continues. A huge thank you to Rebecca for joining me on my channel to talk about the series and writing.

This is an indie published cozy fantasy series that Tor actually picked up and is publishing themselves. It perfectly fits in the same realm as Legends and Lattes. We follow Reyna who works as one of the queen’s guards and we also follow one of the most powerful mages in the realm and they decide to start a courtship, move in together and open up a bookshop but Reyna gets a bounty on her head so they are forced to stay undercover. It’s cute and sweet, simple and sometimes that’s just all you need.

A cozy fantasy with a sapphic romance between a palace guard and a mage who just want to open up a bookshop and be together... that is if they can just get the rest of the world to leave them alone/ Reyna and Kianthe are secret girlfriends, Reyna is the Queen's own private guard who is constantly forced to do as the Queen wishes...even if it costs her her own life. After years and after the latest attack really proves to Reyna just how little her queen actually cares for her, she finally takes the leap that Kianthe, her powerful mage girlfriend, has been begging her to, and they run away together. The only problem with running away is that the Queen will see it as treason and will come after her. Kianthe and Reyna just want to set up a small cozy bookshop and live their life in peace... but mishaps, mysteries, and a vengeful queen will all come after them. Can they have their happily ever after? This one was definitely along the veins of Legends and Lattes except Reyna and Kianthe's relationship is already established and the story drags on a bit more. This book honestly felt 100 pages too long, it's meant to be a cozy fantasy with some romance but it just felt like it was lacking the charm and sweetness that Legends and Lattes had. I really wanted to like it but found myself getting so bored while reading it. Getting to the end was hard, but I pushed through and honestly, I think it just didn't live up to my expectations. This book definitely is for people who want cozy fantasy but on a much slower and longer paced story.

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Bramble for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea did a wonderful job of setting up short and long-term storylines. Part of what kept me reading was not knowing which plots would be resolved by the end of the book and which ones might continue in future books. I look forward to seeing how the main characters will grow and change, as they are definitely endearing. This book is a wonderful addition to the cozy fantasy genre.

I loved this book. The intersection of sweet, sapphic love story, fantasy setting, and community building is one that has a lot of potential to be its own micro genre

This book was a wonderful cozy fantasy and exceeded my expectations.

I appreciated a book with a relationship already well established between the main characters, it allowed the plot points to carry the story while also showing the love and caring between Kianthe and Reyna.

The pacing felt consistent and the puns were a lot of fun. I didn't realize at first that there might be a sequel but would like to read more about Reyna and Kianthe's adventures!

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor/Forge for the opportunity to read and review this book ahead of publication.

Like someone else mentioned, labeling this as a book like Legends and Lattes does it a real disservice. This book unfortunately gave not even one vibe similar to L&L besides there being a cafe involved. I was also excited for the sapphic romance but it was lackluster. There was zero depth to the characters. We were told they were so in love and communicated perfectly to one another and we're understanding of one another's emotions and quirks. But actual communication between the two characters barely showed this. Side characters were not fleshed out. The town they were in had no appeal. I was literally left with no desire to be in this world and my imagining of it was very basic. The world building was not done well. The story was also high stakes which isn't cozy. But even though it was high stakes, I could care less about the drama.

I really forced myself to finish this. It was a huge disappointment.