The Colour of Tea

April 30, 2012
A sweet, airy novel for women and about women: a barren wife, stuck in Macau, China, salvages her sanity by opening a French cafe. Grace and her husband Pete are devastated when they learn they can’t have a child. Pete, who opens casinos in exotic places, escapes sorrow in his exhausting job; Grace wallows in grief at home until she remembers seeing a property for sale “with ovens.” She decides to turn the once smoky Portuguese restaurant into Lillian’s, a cafe serving tea, coffee, macarons... and healing, and not just for Grace. She acquires a regular clientele, first old Yok Lan, and then the beautiful expat Marjory. She hires a secretive, hardworking Filipino girl named Rilla to help her navigate the language barrier, and a brusque Chinese girl named Gigi, good with dishonest suppliers, who Grace discovers is pregnant. Making macarons, the women bond, so that when tragedy strikes they’re able to withstand what threatens them. The denouement is predictable, almost maudlin, but satisfying. This debut author dishes up a fair amount of culinary metaphor, but Macau, rich in potential, is absent; the women in this cafe could be anywhere. Agent: Catherine Drayton, Inkwell Management.