A Year of Tea & Honey

The Night & Its Moon #3.5

by Piper C.J.

The third novellette in The Night and Its Moon universe, A Year of Tea and Honey , is the sapphic tale of Yazlyn, the sergeant in Raascot's military, and her frustrating, beautiful, messy love with Isra, a zoologist documenting the continent's demons, as the women stare into their futures and embody the painful it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Romance, Romantasy, LGBT, Queer

57 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 18, 2023

About the author

Fantasy author with an M.A. in Folklore, who loves to take pictures, eat french fries, and live my life as an all-around creative forest nymph! I'm so excited to bring you with me on my journey as I step out of our everyday lives and into the new fantasy world within The Night and Its Moon fantasy series!

I wrote these books for an audience of one, and that audience was me. I wanted to see bi representation, love, mental health struggles, religious trauma, and overcoming the of obstacles that I needed to be modeled in my own life. At the end of the day I'm so proud of myself for creating the series that I'd always hoped I could read, and I hope someone is able to connect with them in a way that I have.

Reviews

[Eline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mooi boek vindt alleen de novelles net te kort om echt meer over de avonturen van de karakters te leren. Hoewel de emotionele ontwikkeling natuurlijk ook interessant is. Ik snap dat je een van de twee moet kiezen. Boek promoot wel een beetje alcohol als een copings mechanisme met hoofdstukken als Whiskey, Amaretto, en Absinthe😂

[Rayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The heartbreak in knowing your time together is finite but choosing to love anyways🥹 I loved getting to see Yazlyn’s own sapphic romance separate from the rest of the characters AND getting to read about the origins of her friendship with Gadriel was everything. I know people were mad at her at the end of book 2, but my love and understanding for Yaz is deep. This novella only made it deeper.

[Lychee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I randomly decided to read this novella before committing to her The Night and Its Moon series, bc I’d only read This Book Sucks and wanted to get a feel for how her fantasy may be. Anyways, loved it. Downloading the first book of the series now

[Hannah Soderberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful short story. We actually get to see a female romance. What a sad, beautiful, tragic, love affair.

[Cristina Ciborowski Escoffery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yazlyn's story and the third novella in this series. The set up at the beginning had me thinking that Yazlyn's great love was going to die and because she was a bit of a seer she was going to see it coming and it was going to be at Yaz's hand or something but the actual resolution was nowhere near as eventful as that. Yazlyn had a boo for nearly a decade but every summer they would have to say goodbye as Isa would go travelling for work until eventually they broke things off because Isa wanted to travel farther and would be away for too long (insert shrug). Curious to see if this has any relevance to the main story, doubt because Odrin (RIP) and Zacai's novella's haven't come up.

[Nikki Pareja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful as always

Piper captures the gutting pain of embarrassment, shame, and failure in Yaz so very well, but she also brilliantly illuminates the depths of Yaz’ character, her poetic heart, her refusal to abandon love, even when it hurts. Yaz honestly has to be one of my favorite characters, and this novella beautifully shows exactly why that is.

[Jojo Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I liked Yazlin more towards the end, she was definitely not one of my favorite characters. Despite this, the short story was cute, heartbreaking, not too long and not too short either. I did enjoy seeing her character more in depth and seeing her relationships outside of the main circle.

[Elise Celarier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite of all the novellas for the Night And Its Moon series. Piper really took "sexy pain" to a new level with this one. Best representation of a year of wild and true love and the bittersweetness of endings. I was sobbing.

[Jessica L Crockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal short story

I loved getting to know some details about it favorite spring characters. And i loved being back in the amazing world that Piper created. Ten out of ten, just like all of her other creations

[Kierstyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

awwwww

Wonderful little insert that explains Yazlyn. I kind of want to go back and read book 4 all again after reading this with the knowledge. Love the underlying certain uncertainty that Isra has.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most beautiful of all of the novellas!

[Liana Haven · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautiful. So heart wrenching. So true. This was the perfect little addition and makes you understand Yazlyn and other characters so much more!

[Mandy Nicole Darling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This shattered my heart.

[Hannah Branson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always look forward to these novellas. They are delightful. They are soul crushing. They are emotionally delicious.

Thank you, Piper CJ, for spinning beautiful relationships & stories.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart wrenching from start to finish. This novella is so well tied into the main series and so well written, and involved solely my favorite characters.

[Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t cried over a book in well over a decade. This book had be absolutely sobbing. F*ck you, Piper CJ.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone explain what magic was put in this because by the end I was a sobbing mess. Yaz is probably one of my least favorite characters but damn if that didn’t pull her up the list.

[Jazmyn Gannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yaz was one of my favourite characters in the main story so this was just heartbreaking to read, but it makes so much about her character make sense and just rekindled my love for her

[Taylor Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

highlighted Yazlyn’s sorrow, really added to her character.

[Jewelle R · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking isra

[Nina Sakura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Grace Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Destroyed my heart and p*ssy. 10/10 will read again and again while sobbing and listening to Ghost.

[Yareli Vargas · Rating 5 out of 5]

she rlly wuz the one that got away

[Andrea Brado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piper’s novellas are a must read. She deepens the relationship between a character and the reader by providing context and often hidden layers that reflect in the main series. Understanding these characters to such a depth helped me appreciate their thoughts and actions in the main series.

My heart aches. Empathizing that feeing of a break up with someone you will always love. How all the pain in that moment wouldn’t make you regret the memories together. How you would go through feeling like you’re dieing just to do it again.

Yaz has many faults and many lovable things about her. The length to which she falls in love is both.

This novella gives context to the friendship between Gad and Yaz. It provide insight into how difficult her fling with Nox would have been and how deeply she would have felt it. I feel her desperation. Her abandonment. Her inadequacy that something will always be more important than her. I mourn the life she wanted and lost by someone else’s choice.

This novella is not as layered as previous ones. I expect we will get another layer when book four is released or perhaps this story was one that just needed to be told.

—- Quotes —-

“Their friendship, like most of life's best things, had fallen into place effortlessly.” - pg. 506

“… joining the list of things that paled in comparison to being tangled in the sheets with someone you loved.” - pg. 529

“The worst days of her life were when Isra and Gadriel were gone at the same time.” - pg. 536

[Billie Mae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was alright! Although I still think the author could've done better research on medieval careers...was zoology a thing back then? Also, the amount of misused words is WILD. Who edits these?

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I say again, if you are looking for a queer rep fantasy series to read with interesting and complex side character backstories in novellas included with each book LOOK NO FURTHER!