Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery #1
Ellery Adams
Berkley Prime Crime
July 2012/ 978-0-425-25140-9
Mystery/Cozy/Paranormal
Amazon
Reviewed
by Laura Hinds
As a longtime
reader of cozy mysteries, I've watched as themes of craft based
mysteries, such as knitting or other needlework take off in popularity.
Equally popular themes are cooking, animals, gardening, and antiquing.
Yet recently, the cozy mystery world has embraced the union of baking
and magic. How fun!
I previously
reviewed Brownies and Broomsticks, by Bailey Cates and loved it,
and Pies and Prejudice seems to fit right into the theme of magical
baking. I eagerly awaited the arrival of Pies and Prejudice, by
Ellery Adams. Ellery Adams writes under the pen names J B Stanley
and Jennifer Stanley as well. Since I've read most of her other
mysteries, I was confident that the new Charmed Pie Shoppe series
would be fun to read too.
Ella Mae LeFaye
is the protagonist, and boy does she love to bake. When her cheating
husband is caught, she realizes it is time for a change. She moves
back home to Havenwood, Georgia, ready to bake that man right out
of her system. Ella Mae quickly learns that her mouth-watering pies
also effect those who devour them in a magical fashion
including
an eighty year old man who takes to turning cartwheels in the street!
Ella Mae's
rival, Loralyn Gaynor, stirs the pot with her own discontent, and
when Loralyn's fiancé, Bradford Knox, is murdered, it appears
as though Ella Mae has some explaining to do: her rolling pin was
the murder weapon! Aside from the murder, there is intrigue galore
and even a look into the darker side of horse racing.
The Southern
setting of Georgia is comfortable, and the supporting cast of characters,
including her aunts, mother and friend, Reba, fit like a comfortable
pair of jeans. The mystery is rather straight forward and not overly
fussy. However, Adams seems to have developed a penchant for providing
overly detailed descriptions of far too many things. This is not
something I've noticed in any of her other works, and hopefully
this is just a case of a freshman effort in a new series with so
many details vivid in her thought-process that they ended up used
too frequently.
Overall, fans
of Ellery Adams should give this book a go. It is an interesting
mystery, and if my hunches about it are right, the series will grow
into itself and become fabulous.
|