January CoverCAT - Let's Have A Tea Party

We are starting the year by having a party - a tea party. The great thing about this challenge is you are not limited to any genre or style of book, as long as the cover contains something found at a tea party.
You might follow traditional and choose a cup of tea or a pot, be sweet and choose cakes, scones, and biscuits (cookies to us Americans), go with decor and choose trays, flowers, and a fancy tablecloth, or be whimsical and choose a tea party character like the famous ones above.
However, since it is a CoverCAT challenge, please post the cover of your chosen book for all to enjoy and don't forget the WIKI

I will be reading Tea Is For Trouble by Karen Sue Walker for this month's challenge.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to squeeze the CoverCAT in every month, but my aim is to try to read Cackle by Rachel Harrison this month. My audiobook cover looks like this:



but I like the print book cover of some editions even better:

>3 Charon07: I read Cackle in February of this year and I love the second cover with the spider.

Had to work too hard for this one! After searching through about 400 books, I finally found A Bakery in Paris by Aimie Runyan I guess I can do a twofer for ColorCat also?

So far, I think I am going with Southern Magic. More a summer tea party as it has iced tea on the cover!

I plan to read Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe.

Not as easy as I thought. I do have Instant Karma by David Michie

I started and put is aside for January.

The closest I can get is The Suspect by L R Wright which has flowers on the cover.

I'd already earmarked On Directing Film for this month's tea party since it had been on my TBR for a while, but then the SFF challenge inspired me to add Sweet Tea and Spirits to my January plans also, so I'll be reading two for this one!

I have chosen A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer, it comes with a tea table and a talblecloth.

I plan to read Tiny Tilda's Pumpkin Pie since this is something a person might enjoy for tea.

I've chosen Home Truths by David Lodge. Tea drinking seems to be involved in this English home.

Going for the double with The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. It's a green cover for the ColourCAT, with a tea plantation for the CoverCAT.

>5 Tess_W: Yeah, I think this is one I'll have to look at my print books here to see what might fit. Easier to see what's on the cover. I haven't figured this one out yet.

I'm planning to read Three Reasons to Run, since a fancy tea party would include bouquets of flowers:

I think I will go with Anything that moves by Dana Goodyear (and I will also use this book for the RandomKIT Eat, drink, and be merry challenge.)

I'll be reading Coming Home to the Comfort Food Cafe for Random Cat as well as Cover Cat. It's been a TBR since 2018 and is the third book in the Comfort Food Cafe series.

I ended up DNFing Tempest in a Teapot.

Swapped it for A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin. FINISHED

>20 krys_reads: Oh, that one reminds me of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot! Maybe time for a re-read of this book, which I read for a seminar course in Library School that I greatly enjoyed.

I finished the Suspect by L R Wright which has flowers on it so I'm counting it. :)

I am loving all the cover choices and am looking forward to the book reviews.

What to Say Next is my choice, had to go with a random drink cover after an hour of searching my local half priced books.

I am going to read Tea & Treachery by Vicky Delany. It is Book 1 of Tea by the Sea mystery series.,

I read The Blanket Cats as there is a tea cup on the cover.

>26 JayneCM: Did you enjoy the book? It looks so delightfully cozy.

I finished Cackle by Rachel Harrison (covers above in >3 Charon07:). I wouldn’t recommend it, but someone who likes chick lit might enjoy it.

The closest I could get from among the books I own was


The Case of the Missing Finger by Cheri Baker

It has cut fruit on the cover which I think can be part of a tea party

I read A Bakery In Paris by Aimie Runyan This book has a pic of bagels and other pastries on the cover.

I completed Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café. The small Café is almost a character in the book, and the food and drink are mentioned any time there is a meetup there. This was a very pleasant read, good for a drizzly weekend.

I read A Memory of a Christmas Tea by Tom Hegg and illustrated by Warren Hanson. It also counts for my local library challenge for reading a book by a Minnesota author.

I read Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. There's is a lady wearing a hat on the cover and I think wearing a hat might be a tea party thing.

I read The Coincidence of Coconut Cake. Most people would expect some sort of cake to accompany their cup of tea.

Starting The Price of Lemon Cake by Jennifer Ashley and what would a tea party be without lemon cake?

Tea Is For Trouble by Karen Sue Walker ★★★½

I'm April May, and I bought a huge Victorian home in a cozy seaside town on a whim. I’d always loved afternoon tea with dainty sandwiches, scones, and delicious pastries, and the charming pink and purple house would make a perfect tearoom! No one told me the house came with a Bengal cat in the attic who might just be guarding a treasure. How else to explain people breaking into my house? And what about the handsome, arrogant chef in my kitchen no one else can see? Is he a figment of my imagination or a ghost? Either way, he’s putting a tasty French twist on my menu. And before I can even open my tearoom, I’ve found a dead body!

While we do solve a crime in this cozy, most of the book is spent introducing the characters. The characters are captivating and quirky with my current favorite being Irma (the owner of The Mermaid Cafe). The chef's name is Emile and the cat's name is Whisk (he needs to be more of the story). The crime was simple and yet I was unable to solve it before the literary April. Great name for a main character by the way.

I read this and immediately downloaded the next book in the series Tea Is For Toxin, which I have begun reading.

Finished Sweet Tea and Spirits by Angie Fox, and it was so much fun, just like every other book in the series so far. I've written a full review, but in short, if you like cozy paranormal mysteries, you'll enjoy Fox's Southern Ghost Hunger Mysteries!

(And my apologies for folks seeing this message pop up more than once--the book fulfilled four different challenge spots for me this month!!!)

COMPLETED The Price of Lemon Cake by Jennifer Ashley, in which Bobby and Judith agree to help Mrs Holloway with a case in return for one of her famous lemon cakes.

>38 Robertgreaves: I've enjoyed the Mrs. Holloway mysteries so far. I've only read two or three though.

>39 thornton37814: So far there are 7 novels and 4 novellas, with another novella due in "Spring 2025" and a novel in August 2025.

I enjoy them enough to overlook the occasional historical slip, which says a lot.

I've finished The Garden of Evening Mists >15 pamelad:.

Mooncakes



This is a cute little graphic novel about a witch and a werewolf who were childhood friends and meet up again after some years apart, solve a mystery, foster a romance, etc. Despite the title and cover there was very little baking involved. This isn't a genre I'm familiar with so I don't have a huge vocabulary to describe it, but it was an adorable, cosy, autumnal magic adventure and I really loved it. I wish it had been longer, and there were some threads that I felt would have benefitted from being explored deeper, but overall I am very pleased with this read.

I plan to read Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp, which has a cover featuring the setting for a lovely garden tea party.

>43 kac522: Finished Rhododendron Pie and loved it. It begins & ends with birthday tea parties and along the way our heroine gets a marriage proposal in a tea shop!

Finished On Directing Film by David Mamet -- somewhat dry, but useful for folks thinking about delving into screenwriting or wanting to think more deeply about movies' design on screen.

I read Earthly Delights, a mystery featuring a baker, and there is artisan bread on the cover, suitable food for a tea party.

I've finished Infused. Henrietta Lovell is an adventurer, an entrepreneur, a poetic writer, a travel guide and an excellent storyteller. Her memoir drips with flavor and essence.

With a Bare Bodkin by Cyril Hare
Punctilious Civil Service procedures can be grim especially to those of us who remember similar bureaucratic regulations - even if they were from a later date. Hare has illustrated them here in an amusing satire where lawyer, Francis Pettigrew, is legal advisor for Pin Control at the beginning of WWII. It is hard to imagine a business more suited to the rule-bound bureaucracy than the control of pin manufacture, presumably a fictional department created by Hare.

What started as a game to create a murder plot using department staff as characters turned out to be alarmingly real. However, the discussion of the crime and suspects was endless and tedious, that I expect was meant to also illustrate the painstaking official red-tape investigative methods. As a war time publication, when loss of life was only too real, this is a lighter murder mystery written to entertain. The satisfying denouement had a nice legal twist.

The tea kettle on the cover plays a part.

I read A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. The main character is a travelling tea monk, and I believe that is them in the bottom corner of the cover holding a small cup of tea on their cart.

I'm counting Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams for this CAT. The cover has a couple elements that would be found at a tea party: a table (gotta rest that teapot somewhere!) and a vase of flowers (for the ambience).

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
A mother and three children are snubbed when they move to a village after the divorce. Locals don't like divorced families in their midst. The two daughters, 9 and 11 year old, decide that to be accepted they need a Man at the Helm. They write letters of invitation to local men hoping one of them will click with their mother. Excellent writing, funny but not comedy. I enjoyed this one thoroughly.

Thank you to everyone who participated this month. The February thread is https://www.librarything.com/topic/367622#n8748421 for anyone who hasn't found it yet.

I have taken 4 Book Bullets from this month's challenge, >8 Robertgreaves:, >20 krys_reads:, >26 JayneCM: and >47 beebeereads:.

Read Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke - the cover had a cheery border of decorated sugar cookies