The Perfect Blend

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. Katy is reeling from the death of her mother. Carol was not just her mother, but her best friend and she is lost without her. She decides to embark on the mother-daughter trip Carol had planned and is for the first time on her own. While taking in the beauty of Positano, Katy runs into the 30 year old version of her mother. Not sure what is happening, she follows Caro...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. The Signature of All Things chronicles the epic saga of the Whittaker family. From Henry Whittaker's humble beginnings in England, his seeking fortune abroad and establishing himself as the wealthiest man in Philadelphia , to his daughter Alma. She is a curious, brilliant, well educated and disciplined in her study of plants. She inherits Henry's instincts and...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. The Last Garden in England takes us back in time to the early 1900's, WWII, and back to present day to tell the story of the people and gardens of Highbury House. As Emma works to unravel the secrets and lost stories of the neglected gardens of the present day Highbury House to restore it to its former glory, the story travels back to WWII when the house was requi...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. Can you ever be freed from childhood trauma? It's a great question and one that may or may not be answered in The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides . This book is a contemporary psychological thriller that tells the story of Alicia, who killed her husband, Gabriel, six years earlier—and hasn’t spoken since. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who is determin...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend where we pair a perfect cup of tea with a great book. The Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen introduces Zoe, a high school graduate moving to South Carolina before beginning college. She moves into the condominium that her mother left her to start a new life and she is looking forward to having that connection and getting to know the other owners at Dallowisp Condos. H...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. Today's book is a fast paced entertaining story about, well, killers of a certain age. Deanna Raybourn knocked this one out of the park! Four retired assassins board an all-expenses paid cruise only to realize that this a plan for a permanent retirment. The ladies must use their wits and abilities to figure out who is behind the hit and how they will survive. Shel...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Today's featured book is The Illegal Gardener by Sara Alexi . Juliet has left her home and life in England to work remotely from the Greek villa she has just bought. In need of help with her gardens she hires Aaman, an illegal immigrant from Pakistan. Both Juliet and Aaman have hardships and though they come from different backgrounds and situations, they learn th...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! J.J.A. Harwood has blended a fractured fairy tale with a faustian morality twist. Shelly and I have a lot to say about this- it definitely wasn't the Cinderalla story we expected! Ella is a lady in training downgraded to a lowly housemaid. The opportunity for seven wishes appears along with a peculiar fairy godmother, but each wish comes with a heavy price. Shelly...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Beware of Doors.....you never know where they will take you. Neil Gaiman has created magically fearful and wondrous worlds under the London we are familiar with. A hero's journey for a rather average gentleman who goes on a dangerous quest. Are you up for it? Shelly's tea: Lavender Lady Candy's tea: Insane Cinnamon Orange Links mentioned: Marquis de Caraba...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. We are revisiting author Sarah Penner and her second novel, The London Seance Society. What a treat! If you are interested in seances, ghosts, murder and intrigue- this is a book you'll definitely want to read. Shelly's tea: http://spotorganic.com/index.html Candy's tea: https://www.spiceandtea.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=victorian%20chai%20black%20tea Jea...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. We saved an Agatha Christie classic for our final March murder mystery. This was at the time a controversial book for Christie because she broke all the rules of writing a traditional murder mystery. We DO spoil it for you if you haven't read it, but that doesn't mean it's not worth reading anyway. Roger Ackroyd is murdered just as he is about to find out...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend podcast! Today we had a delightful discussion of Rupert Holmes's book Murder Your Employer. Woweee-wow-wow....it's a wicked good guide to how to go about eh-hem... deleting a despicable boss. Told through case studies of three particular students who have been made absolutely miserable by the person that employs them, we get a peek into McMaster's Conservat...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! We chose this book because we were immediately intrigued by the title.   Benjamin Stevenson did NOT disappoint!   A family reunion is taking place at a decrepit ski resort and not everyone is excited to be there.  On top of lots of family drama, murders are happening. Oh you'll know when- the narrator makes sure to tell you.  And while he reve...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. This week's book is Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman .  Four individuals who live in Cooper's Chase Retirement Home and meet each week in the Jigsaw Room to discuss and try to solve unsolved murders.   Shelly's tea (is DELICIOUS!):   Tropical Chamomile Dreams by Caribbean Fusion Sauces and Spices Loose Tea Candy's tea (also yummy):   Peppermin...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. March is all about murder mysteries and we are springing forward with Betsy Reavley's Murder at the Book Club .   Nine women get together for tea and cake and a book discussion.  All friends, on the surface at least.  Until one of them is murdered and secrets start to come out....   *We give away some spoilers in this episode, so be forewarned. &nb...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Young, beautiful, talented and untethered by the usual conventions, Daisy Jones is on her way to stardom when she partners with the band The Six.  In a rockumentary interview style, Taylor Jenkins Reid characters revisit their past as a rock and roll band experiencing the wild and groovy 70s.  To celebrate the launch of Daisy Jones and The Six on Netflix, we...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend. We are going back to London in the 1800's- we can't seem to get enough of this time period- to talk about Things in Jars by Jess Kidd .  We are blending the phantasmagoric mystery full of intrigue, kidnappers, ghosts and Irish folklore with Connemara Kitchen 's Irish Tea and Tin Roof Tea 's Einstein's Equation.  Jess Kidd brings together a history, a mystery...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Shelly and I are exploring Laurie Lico Albanese 's book Hester.  We must really love Salem because we keep revisiting, and every time we go back we learn so many new things!  Albanese brings together some historical characters and adds some new twists to the Salem Witch legacy.  Hester is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne Scarlet Letter and you...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! February is going to feature all things dark and not-so-romantic here on the podcast.   We are kicking off with Sarah Penner's debut novel The Lost Apothecary.   Sipping Wild Iris and honey lemon teas, Shelly and Candy go back and forth in time exploring London England and some mysteries and miseries shared by some ladies 200 years apart.   Settle...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! We decided to wrap up our time travel month with Elizabeth Howell's The Science of Time Travel:  The Secrets Behind Time Machines, Time Loops, Alternate Realities, and More! The exclamation point is hers, not ours.  To find out why, grab yourself a cup of tea, get comfy and download this episode. Shelly's tea:   Trailhead Huckleberry from Winterwoods Te...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Matt Haig's beautiful book The Midnight Library is our feature this week.  Find out what we thought and what we paired it with on this week's episode. Shelly's tea:  From our first teaventure- Tea and Sympathy.  Taylor's of Harrorgate Organic Peppermint Candy's tea:  From Quintin's Tea- Southern Virginia Tea Company. Spicy Chai Connect with us on I...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Everything's all kay in the world with time travel agents zipping and zagging to save us all from our impending doom.  Throw in a gal whose timeline creates no ripple effect leaving her free to jump in and out without any clusterfarms.   Sam Bowring  made us laugh out loud with this time travel book.  We are looking forward to reading the next one...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! We are diving into time travel this month starting with Kate Mascarenhas ' book The Psychology of Time Travel.  It's a great dip back and forth in time as well as a murder mystery..... We visited the Southern Virginia Tea Shop to find something good to pair it with- Shelly chose Winter Wassail by the Yaupon Brothers and Candy found a Jet Lag Asleep. Both teas wer...

✨Bonus Episode✨ Welcome to The Perfect Blend and Happy New Year from Shelly and Candy🥳🪩 We have added an extra episode to wrap up our first (short) year of podcasting.  To celebrate, we chose Ami McKay's Half Spent Was the Night.  It's the perfect book to share on New Year's Eve and we are delighted to end our year with an author that got us started on our journey. We paired our book...

Welcome to The Perfect Blend! Gabrielle Zevin's sweet novel is just the thing to warm your heart and take a restorative break after all the holiday festivities.   To learn more about the author:   Gabrielle Zevin Shelly's tea   August Uncommon Tea Biarritz Candy's tea Asheville Tea Company Hibiscus Mojito Find independent bookstores here . ***Don't forget we are adding a specia...