Review - - Spilling the Tea

Spilling the Tea

by Brenda Jackson

Publisher: Canary Street Press

Release Date: April 1, 2025

Reviewed by PJ

Ninetysomething Mama Laverne is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren their perfect match before going home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent—and she intends to keep it that way.

After sustaining injuries in Iraq, Chancellor Madaris was told he’d never walk again. Chance credits his great-grandmother Mama Laverne with giving him the will to heal and prove the doctors wrong. He has a healthy respect for her meddling ways and knows he’ll eventually end up next on her matchmaking list.

When Zoey Pritchard was eight, she survived a car accident that took the lives of her mother and father, and was sent to live with her great-aunt who refused to speak about her parents. Zoey has no memory from before the crash, but she’s been having the same dream over and over…

Searching for answers, Zoey travels to Houston, where she uncovers a scandal involving her parents and the wealthy and powerful Madaris family. Her trail leads her straight to Chance’s door. The dislike and intense attraction are instant and simultaneous. But to help Zoey restore her memory, he grudgingly introduces her to his great-grandmother…

Was it chance, or Mama Laverne’s plan, that threw this pair together?

PJ's Thoughts:

Brenda Jackson has written 150 books, hitting both the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists in the process. Spilling the Tea, in my opinion, is one of her best and one of my all-time Jackson favorites. 

Jackson has a way of luring readers into her stories with intriguing characters, relatable circumstances, and emotional engagement. In this book, she offers up two couples for the price of one. I connected with Zoey and Chance almost immediately but I was equally connected to the earlier couple whose ill-fated romance set off scandalous shock waves that rocked two families, a scandal unknown to all present-day characters with the exception of Mama Laverne and one of her sons. 

Jackson seamlessly interweaves the two stories together using flashbacks of the past with unfolding events of the present and the unlikely twists that bond the two together. The end result is an emotional dual-timeline story with strong family dynamics, heart-wrenching emotion, sensual romance, closely-held secrets, and another Madaris HEA. 

Fans of Jackson's Madaris family will no doubt enjoy the many cameos in this book by beloved characters (now the older generations) from earlier books while those readers new to this universe should have no issues jumping in here. Spilling the Tea stands beautifully on its own.