What if the truth really did come out… even just for an hour?

Barbara is a curious soul who lives to read books. She’s a mum, a wife, a reader, a cat-owner and someone who still believes that kindness matters. Then one rainy afternoon, she steps into a peculiar little shop in her local town and leaves with something extraordinary: a vial of tea that compels anyone who drinks a drop of it tell the truth — for exactly sixty minutes.

Bookstagram Tour: 2nd – 6th June 
Genre: Contemporary | Family Life | Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

At first, Barbara experiments carefully. Harmlessly. But when politics creeps closer to home and a dangerous new movement begins to take hold of her community, the temptation to use the tea for some greater purpose becomes impossible to ignore.

As neighbours, friends and families are drawn into a plan that could change far more than a council election, Barbara must decide how much power is too much, and whether honesty really is the best policy when the stakes are this high.

Sometimes all it takes to change everything is the truth.

My Review

If you voted for Brexit or plan to vote Reform in the next election, then this book is probably not for you. There are a lot of parallels, particularly the ‘Change’ party, and its councillors and MPs. And it’s not flattering or sympathetic.

Barbara Truscoe is a fairly ordinary wife and mother, living in a fairly typical suburban cul-de-sac. She gets on really well with her neighbours and her kids are pretty OK. Daughter Dani is twenty-one and supposedly intelligent, even though she says ‘like’ in every sentence. Teenage son Leo is not your average teenager – studious and thoughtful, and no drugs or getting drunk every weekend – though he does admit to getting up to a bit of naughtiness when under the ‘tea of truth’.

Because Barbara sheltered from the rain in a bookshop called Surprises, which doesn’t appear to exist. She purchased four ‘perfect’ books for her family and the owner Jean gave her a small bottle of ‘truth drops’. ‘Just one drop of this in any drink, although it prefers builder’s tea, it has to be said,’ Jean told her. ‘… just one drop in any drink and the imbiber is compelled to tell the truth for exactly one hour…. I firmly believe you can be trusted with this responsibility.’

But the Tea of Truth isn’t just for fun. It can change everything if you are willing to go that far. So when Dani slips a drop into Change’s prospective councillor’s drink at a hustings, he tells the truth and it’s not pretty.

Neighbour Nicola Lambert was married to a total loser, and 18-year-old son Robbie is looking to go the same way, following his father’s right wing views and obsession with Poundland Andrew Tate, Troy Hunt. In the meantime Milly Dobson from Dani’s old school is assisting Change’s leader Trevor Jensen with the local elections, and recruits Robbie to take promotional photos. And then of course there’s the cat – the Duchess of Poppet – who has an opinion about everything.

I loved this book. I found it very funny and really on the mark with what’s going on in politics in the UK at the moment.

Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #bookstagram tour.

About the Author

Peter Berry (known as PB to friends) was born in Surrey at the end of the 1960s and miraculously graduated from the University of York with a degree in history. He used this knowledge of the world to begin a career in PR which quickly lead to working in telly, theatre and film. In the 1990s he worked with Channel 4 publicising many of their US imports – Friends, E.R., Oprah Winfrey, Frasier and the short-lived but much loved by eight people, Bakersfield. He also used to receive Christmas phone calls from the actor, James Stewart.

In 1996, he ambled into the music industry and spent ten high-speed years working with musicians as diverse as Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Steps, The Who, Groove Armada, Meat Loaf (always two words), George Benson, Billy Ocean, Atomic Kitten and many more. In 2001, he began working with Jamie Oliver and ultimately became the chef’s Head of PR, travelling the world and eating delicious food; the toughest of gigs indeed. In 2016, he started the food PR business, Berry & Green with the excellent Chloe Green (no relation to Suzanne Green in Lunch with the Deadly Dozen).

In 2019 he started writing a novel on the basis that, despite the excitement of the previous thirty five years, he hadn’t actually ever created anything interesting (apart from a three page biography of The Blue Nile in 2004 which was quite good). The result, after four years, eighteen drafts, numerous rejection letters and four title changes, is Lunch with the Deadly Dozen. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, two daughters and a cockerpoo. He listens to music every day and is probably doing that right now.

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