Pies and Prejudice (Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries #1) By: Ellery Adams

Plot:

When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flakey crust. But her pies aren’t just delicious. They’re having magical effects on the people who eat them—and the public is hungry for more.

Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe. But with her old nemesis Loralyn Gaynor making trouble, and her old crush Hugh Dylan making nice, she has more than pie on her plate. and when Loralyn’s fiancé is found dead—killed with Ella Mae’s rolling pin—it’ll take all her sweet magic to clear her name.

Review:

I’m not a pie fan, I like maybe three kinds of pie, not a huge fan of fruit in deserts. I’m also not good at making the ones I do like, each time I’ve tried I’ve screwed up somehow. I can bake cakes and cookies and I’m a pretty fair cook but pies have so far alluded me. All that to say, after reading this book I desperately wanted a pie. I wanted to make one, I wanted to eat one, I wanted a freaking pie, but I’ve yet to get my hands on one.

Anyway, I’ve been looking for a cozy mystery author that I like as much as Jenn McKinley and while I’m not saying Ellery Adams is there for me yet, she’s got promise. I even used birthday money and paid a full $7.99 for the sequel, that’s a lot for me to spend on an author that I’m unfamiliar with.

I enjoyed the world created, I thought the mystery was intriguing, and I loved all the baking. The characters were good, especially the side characters. This is a kind of paranormal cozy, but the magic system isn’t really defined and Ella Mae didn’t even know she had magic until the very end. She was just able to infuse her pies with feelings. It was very lite paranormal and could be interesting to see how it’s developed.

4/5