Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop: 06/22/21

Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim starts in Palo Alto but is mostly set in Paris. A small quibble, the novel should be Evelyn Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop as the titular tea shop belongs to Vanessa's aunt.

Vanessa and her aunt come from a long line of clairvoyants. Her aunt can predict people's futures accurately and at will. For Vanessa the visions come when she drinks tea. They are painful and unwanted and most often bad news. She feels like she's cursed and she doesn't want to spread her curse to others.

Being clairvoyant comes with a price. There is no HEA for them. There are no true loves — no one to share their lives with. Yet, Evelyn has come to rekindle things with an old flame, and Vanessa has met a young man from Montreal who is working in Paris.

Despite my minor quibble over the choice in title, I found this a delightful book. I found the pacing better focused than Lim's first book, Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune (2019). A big chunk of that probably stems from the setting being somewhere I've never visited (Paris).

Roselle Lim's next book is Sophie Go's Lonely Hearts Club (2022).

Five stars

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