Cover Image: The Travelling Tea Shop

The Travelling Tea Shop

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Member Reviews

Unfortunately this title was a DNF for me as it just wasn't grabbing my interest nor were the characters enjoyable enough for me to finish it so I won't be producing an official review.

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I got to this book late and felt really bad about it so I decided to give it an honest shot. I went all the way to 71% but I'm sorry it did not engage me at all.

The premise was interesting enough - a star British chef riding around the USA in a red double-decker bus, swapping baking recipes with other chefs. But the narrator is the publicist who has to put this together and there's nothing interesting or remarkable about her? I found it really hard to feel involved in her character through her desperate bid to land this deal then breezing through it and spending the whole trip griping about how difficult her clients were to work with. I also couldn't summon up any sympathy for the clients - a flaky (no, literally) star chef with all the professionalism of a lady of leisure, an unbearably bratty daughter (not a kid but a 20-year-old unemployed, thieving, sabotaging inappropriate monster) and a 'quirky' manipulative octogenarian grandmother. Some men showed up and they felt as cardboard as the ones in romcoms that fell by the wayside.

And finally, for a book supposedly centered around food, there was just so little about it! Almost as an afterthought, there were mentions of Boston Cream Pie, Fairy cakes and such. But none of the rigour of good food writing that makes the reader salivate and wish they lived within that fictional universe.

Nope, not going back for seconds or even cleaning my plate with this one.

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