The Perfect Blend

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.   

Shelly's tea:  Tin Roof Tea's Red Chai

Candy's tea: Tazo's Passion Tea

Websites and other mentions:

DIY Starbuck's Pink Drink Recipe

Blood Type:  Betsy Reavley

crimefictionlover

DON'T FORGET!  Our first ever online book club will be live on Facebook Thursday March 2nd at 7pm!  We will be talking about Daisy Jones and The Six.  Whether you've read the book or not, we'd love for you to join.  We will be featuring some tidbits, trivia and will be giving away some SWAG! Follow us on our Facebook page The Perfect Blend for the event.

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 will host our first ever book club online.  On Thursday, March 2, we will be live on Facebook to  talk about the book, share some 70s trivia and tidbits AND we will going to give away a little swag.

Shelly's Tea:  The Tea Spot's Mango Tango

Candy's Tea:  "Tea-Rex" Peach Mango Tea Mix & Purple Sugar Glitter

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, collectors of interesting things, a kidnapping, a ghost and ties it all together into a great story.  

To find out a bit more and to hear about our thoughts, our further exploration and what we thought- have a listen!

Join us here every Wednesday as we talk about a book that we've read and the tea we paired with it.

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 might just meet some characters you've heard of before.  Well worth the read!

Shelly's tea:  Cyotea's Tea as Old as Time

Candy's tea:  Bohemian Peddler's Courage Tea

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 in and sip along!

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 Tea Company

Candy's tea: Dandelion Leaf & Root from Traditional Medicinals

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 Instagram   , our website or Facebook!

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 to see how things turn out.  

Shelly's tea is Calm the F*ck Down by Snarky Tea.

Candy's teas are Rip Van Winkle and Eintstein's Equation from Tin Roof Teas- a great tea shop located in Raleigh, North Carolina (make sure you stop by and see them if you're in the area!) 

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 were great for attempting time travel.  Even if it we were just reading about it;}

✨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 with Russian Tea, a childhood favorite that both of our mom's used to make (and that Shelly's mom made for us).

Russian Tea:

Store in a container. Stir 3-4  tablespoons into a cup of hot water.

Other interesting things mentioned:

Bleigiessen

The really cool wax melting spoon set and wax melting beads Candy bought to try Bleigiessen.

The Wild Hunt

Engelszopf