28 Jul 2020

Vanessa Yu Book Tour Review + Playlist

Title: Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop
Author: Roselle Lim
Publication: 04 August 2020 by Berkeley Romance
Genre: Adult, Romance, Contemporary
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     Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tea leaves.
     Ever since she can remember, Vanessa Yu has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romantic life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai.
     The day before her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa accidentally sees her own fate: death by a traffic accident. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric aunt, Evelyn, shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to America and bonjour to Paris. While working at Evelyn’s tea stall at a Parisian antique market, Vanessa performs some matchmaking of her own, attempting to help reconnect her aunt with a lost love. As she learns more about herself and the root of her gifts, she realizes one thing to be true: knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is.

All of us are unsure of our future. However, we have a bit of intuition in us that we somehow know what would take place. This instinctive knowing came from our small to big decisions and/or our positive thinking during negative happenings that would result in either acceptable or horrible occurrence. To be born with clairvoyance in knowing a bit of the future is a wonderful gift a person could have, but not to Vanessa Yu.

Our MC struggled with her endowment since she was 3 years old. To her, even with her another clairvoyant Aunt's help in controlling what she sees, it is a curse and she's persistent not to accept it. And so, she thought that the only way to control her life is for her to get rid of the ability. Yet with her apparent power to perceive things, she only saw the end of her life... not what's in between. 

There is flawlessness about how the characters are written especially, Aunt Evelyn. I am proud to share that while I was live-tweeting my reading progress of the book and shared that I can only accept Michelle Yeoh as Aunt Evelyn whenever it would be adapted into a movie, Roselle Lim the author, confirmed that she is exactly who she pictured!

Another plus point is the plot with its [I have read somewhere that it is] magical realism. If you're familiar with Sarah Addison Allen and have loved her books especially Garden Spells, you will surely fell for this too. Thus, Roselle Lim has hit my inner soft goddess towards troubled main characters like Vanessa as a result of her extraordinarily good writing. 

Aside from the abundance of delineated delicacies of America and Paris, Vanessa Yu's Magical Tea Shop will bring you an Asian family's unconditional love; a person's sufferance of her self; and, a liberation of one's unselfishness. A remarkable read.


Source: NetGalley - Thank you! · I received a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.


Vanessa Yu's Magical Tea Shop is available for purchase on
Amazon Barnes and Noble Book Depository IndieBound

Here's a playlist for ya'll to listen while reading! Click on the photo to get redirected to your Spotify player.









I am proud to be part of this awing book tour. Thanks to Shealea, Caffeine Book Tours, Roselle Lim, and Berkeley Romance for the opportunity and for letting us tour hosts experience this delicious book!


20 comments

  1. First of all I love this cover! It’s so cute! Secondly, the book sounds really great and I love Paris as a setting.

    Thanks for sharing!

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  2. ahhhh this! omg!
    i am living for Aunt Evelyn. Thanks for giving me the motivation to finish kasi it didn't disappoint me in the least ❤️❤️❤️

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    1. Me, too! I would love to meet such person someday. You're welcome! I am delighted I gave you motivation. Flattered, also. :)

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  3. I loved the magical aspects of this story, too! And I love that you made a playlist! I'll have to listen to it. This book reminds me so much of Invisible String from Taylor Swift's new album.

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    1. I should thought to add that! It would perfectly.

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  4. I definitely want to read more from this author. I just finished Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune, and I think Roselle Lim is very great at what she does. I love magical realism and I think it's awesome that she is able to weave that into stories about Asian culture as well.

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    1. She is! I would like to read her debut, too. Maybe I'll pick it next for my contemporary read.

      Same. It's my first time reading a magical realism book that is in Asian culture.

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  5. Wow this sounds really good! I love the idea of having an ability like that and having to learn to live with it.

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  6. First of all, can we talk about how freaking pretty your blog looks? I'm in love.

    BUT ANYWAY. This is a fantastic review! I am so overjoyed that you really liked Vanessa Yu, and I can't wait to give your playlist a listen. Thank you for hosting this tour really well!

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    1. Hi. Welcome to my blog, Shealea! Thank you. Glad that you loved it. I like it minimal so I can showcase the beautiful covers of the books I share on this blog.

      You're welcome. Thanks heaps too. Until the next tour with CBT. <3

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  7. This is such a lovely review, thank you for sharing <3 I have read the author's debut, Natalie Tan, and found it so beautiful and endearing. I think I'll have to that that one :D

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    1. Oh, you should Marie! I'm definitely gonna read her debut soon too. <3

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  8. I didn't know about this one but it looks good there! And I really love the cover!

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  9. Fellow minimalist blog person here - I like a lot of white space too lolol
    This book sounds ... magical! I can't resist a book set in Paris!

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  10. I read this during wikathon and agree with so many of your points! The family relationships were definitely my favorite part!

    riv @ small stained pages

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    1. I'm glad this was included in your wikathon read pile. Definitely the best!

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  11. Sounds like a good read and don't you just love author/reader interaction? Always melts my heart and makes me smile. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I do love authot-reader interaction. I agree, and you will forever root for whatever book they publish. <3

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