Review by Kelly Jarvis: Tea & Alchemy by Sharon Lynn Fisher

Sharon Lynn Fisher, the author of Salt & Broom and Grimm Curiosities, returns readers to the lush, romantic 19th century in her latest book Tea & Alchemy. When Mina Penrose, a lonely young woman who spends her days working in a tearoom called The Magpie in 1854 Cornwall, discovers a dead body on the heath, she becomes embroiled in a mystery concerning Harker Tregarrick, the elusive aristocrat living alone on a centuries-old estate. Together, the unlikely pair must use their intelligence and otherworldly gifts to unravel the folkloric haunting plaguing their village while navigating the growing romance between them.

The characters' names hint at the presence of literary vampires, but instead of blood-thirsty demons, readers will find a lonely man cursed with a family affliction. Harker uses alchemical concoctions to stave off his violent desires, but his attraction to the sweet, tea-leaf reading Mina challenges his restraint. Their attraction to each other is further complicated by the suspicions of the villagers, including Mina’s twin brother Jack, who will risk everything he has to save his sister. Fans of vampire literature, Gothic atmosphere, and cozy, slow-burn romance will devour this book!

Fisher shines in creating immersive settings, and her village of Roche Rock in Cornwall is no exception. She uses beautiful language to describe the fog and the moors, the windswept pathways and the crumbling chapel. These moody images are set against the cozy tearoom and divination magic, and beneath it all is a forbidden yearning for love and acceptance as the antidote to loneliness. I especially loved Fisher’s nods to Jane Rochester from Salt & Broom, her use of a quote from Jon Polidori’s The Vampyre to set the stage for her tale, and her balance of Mina’s first-person pint of view with Harker’s voice and interjections. The mystery propelled me to keep reading in the hopes of discovering the killer, but Tea & Alchemy is a book to which I will return whenever I am longing for the comforts that only Gothic literature, sumptuous descriptive imagery, and romantic mystery can provide. Pour yourself a cup of tea, light a flickering candle, curl up beneath a warm blanket, and let Sharon Lynn Fisher’s writing alchemize the everyday world into a realm of magic. You won’t be disappointed! You can find it here.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review.

Kelly Jarvis works as the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine and teaches writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University. Her work has been featured in A Moon of One’s Own, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, The Magic of Us, and Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. Her debut novella, Selkie Moon, was released in 2025. You can connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/