A Coup of Tea – Casey Blair

I see that the genres listed for this book are Fantasy, Cozy Mystery, Young Adult, Romance, Magic, Fiction, Dragons, and ‘more’. Sounds about right. It’s surely a fantasy novel, as most of it takes place in a city situated at the edge of a magical Calamity. (The protagonist gets to the city by train.) And it does have the other elements listed, and more besides. What keeps all those elements from crowding out the story, is Miyara’s consistent focus on individuals. She serves tea to individuals, one at a time, and focuses on helping them be the people they need to be.

No, it’s not that cozy. The immediate priority is to keep the city ‘s inhabitants from being ruined or destroyed. The longer-term priority (though she doesn’t realize it at first) is to keep the world from being destroyed. There are so many ways this book could have gone wrong. Instead, the main character - who is likable and competent and who possesses unshakeable integrity - carries the book, and later the trilogy.