Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780425251409
Berkley Publishing
266 Pages
$7.52; $2.99 Amazon
July 3, 2012
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When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LeFaye bakes pie. 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 flaky crust. But her pies aren't just delicious, they're also having magical effects on the people who eat them -- and the public is hungry for more.
Having discovered 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.
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When Ella Mae LeFaye discovers her husband cheating, she runs home to her birthplace of Havenwood, Georgia and her mother. While she finds comfort in baking, it's her mother and three aunts who convince her that her pies hold miracles, and she needs to open a pie shoppe. But her childhood enemy, Loralyn Gaynor, wants the building for a third beauty salon, and is attempting to get her fiancé to buy it for her. Ella Mae wins out, and Loralyn vows revenge.
When there's a shouting match at a bank between Loralyn and Ella Mae, but all customers can see is Loralyn's fiancé, and he's later found dead - with Ella Mae's rolling pin as the weapon, she's put in the hot seat as the lead suspect. But the police don't have enough to charge her, so she's released. Now Ella Mae is on the hunt for a killer to free herself, but if she doesn't find one, she'll be cooked herself...
I enjoy Ellery Adams books, and I really wanted to like this one. While it starts out okay, I need to say that toward the end it got too "woo-woo" for me. I'm not one who likes paranormal, fantasy, witches, etc. (I do like ghosts if they're interesting); and when things were winding up at the end I started rolling my eyes. For the most part, I like books to be believable, and this one went off the rails.
Ella Mae started out fine, and I even enjoyed her ability to make 'magical' pies. I thought it was a cute touch to the book - but when she picked up the baby names book and started looking at them, that was it for me. Seriously? This is when she discovers the truth? And it's in her name?
I would have also liked to have known more about her time in New York. Didn't she even care about her belongings? Were her clothes tainted with her husband? Who just leaves everything behind? Not even packing a suitcase? Also, some of the pie recipes sounded gross. I would also like to know how the rolling pin got out of her home and into the burning building. It was never explained. (It was explained how it disappeared out of the truck, but not how the original rolling pin got out of her house. Who took it and when?
I also felt many of the characters were caricatures. Tainted horse farms but no one wonders why the Gaynors weren't involved? That should have been the first thing the police should have looked at. Why didn't they look at Loralyn as being involved, either? An intelligent cop might have been able to connect the dots the minute they realized Ella Mae had no motive.
At any rate, I won't be reading any more in this series. Sorry.
https://www.amazon.com/Pies-Prejudice-Charmed-Shoppe-Mystery/dp/0425251403/ref
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3204902378
More on Ellery Adams's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/ellery-adams/
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