A Pirate's Life for Tea

A Pirate's Life for Tea by Rebecca Thorne (2023) 440 pages

The story of Kianthe and Reyna from the Cozy Fantasy Can't Spell Treason Without Tea continues in this series of adventures that includes a quest for dragons' eggs. Kianthe is the Arcandor, the Mage of Ages, and she has the magic to prove it. Reyna is a strong and skillful fighter, a former guard to the awful queen. In the first book, Kianthe convinced dragons to stop destroying the town where the women had opened a bookstore/tea shop and made friends. But in return, she agreed to look for some dragons' eggs which had been stolen. As the women, newly engaged to each other, work to make good on this task, they encounter pirates, constables, alchemy, and Diarn Arlon, who is a lord of the region where they have reason to believe the dragons' eggs are. The Diarn has been bleeding the people in his area of food, opting to sell it to others while his people were suffering. Hence the activity of Serina, a pirate who is more akin to Robin Hood, stealing food and shipping it to others who are hungry.

It's a love story and an ethical adventure that has our heroes match-making, as well as getting into trouble, despite their best instincts. Meanwhile, Reyna's baby griffon, Ponder is starting to become trained... Not my usual genre, but I'm finding these books to be a treat.