Review: The Traveling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones

The Traveling Tea Shop

by Belinda Jones

Publisher: Berkley

Pages: 368

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Laurie Davis has always followed her passion. After escaping family drama to start a new life in New York City, she’s up for whatever challenges life brings. So when an opportunity arises for her to use her travel industry expertise and serve as an assistant and tour guide for her idol, Pamela Lambert-Leigh, star of television’s Tea-Time with Pamela, she jumps at the chance.

But Laurie’s exciting adventure ends up entailing a lot more than scouting locations for the cake queen’s new cookbook when Pamela’s sassy mother and sulky, rebellious daughter tag along for the trip. As they cruise around bakeries in New England trading local delights like Red Velvet Cake and Whoopie Pies for British specialties such as Victoria Sponge and Bakewell Tarts, more secrets than recipes are revealed.

Now, in between rediscovering romance, learning to forgive family, and finding the best dessert on the East Coast, Laurie, Pamela, and the gang might find there’s nothing a nice cup of tea, a sweet treat, and a little bit of friendship can’t heal…


Kritters Thoughts:  Laurie Davis is known as the travel gal and is a pro at putting together memorable trips for clients (what a great job!), but her next client will be the doozie!  Pamela Lambert-Leigh is a tv star in the food world and is known in the UK as the cake queen.  Pamela wants to travel New England and bake and discover and write a new cookbook.  

This book started out great for me.  I love road trip books and I love books with food, but somewhere in the middle this one slowed down for me.  The combination of the crazy characters just slowed down the story too much for me - I think I got lost a little too.  I loved Laurie, but Pam and her family were just a little too much for me.  The one thing that kept me reading was the history and the food.  I loved that they visited very historic cities in the Northern US and learning about the foods that were created there and the people definitely kept me going.  

A road trip book combined with food and family, a lot of ingredients and an interesting book came out of it.  I think there are a few things I would adjust with this book that would have made it more of a home run for me.

Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2015 Challenge: 18 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Penguin Random House.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.