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Book Review
Reviewed: 24 February 2025

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes

by: Sandra Jackson-Opoku

A Mystery

  • Rating: full starfull starfull starhalf starstar outline (3.5/5)

A pie to die for...literally

This book sets itself apart from the other cozy mysteries in a few ways. It is set in the South Side of Chicago with a divorced and widowed 50s Black woman as the main character, you know off the bat this will not be your typical mystery, just in case you didn’t get it from the title. Unlike other cozy mysteries that dribble the character backstories throughout the series, we are given a lot of it upfront character development. Keep that in mind as you read and wonder “when are they going to get to the investigating”.  Plus there isn’t a love triangle, though there is some will she/won’t she. 

A minor thing for me was the dialogue for Savvy didn’t seem to match the person show would correct others (if only in her head) due to her past career as an English teacher.

The ending was a bit of a surprise but as I look back it is not out of the realm of possibilities, just wasn’t one I thought of.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MinotaurBooks for the opportunity to do an early read and share my thoughts on the story. 

Happy Reading!

Release Date: 29-July-2025 (expected)
Food Mystery, Female Sleuth, NetGalley

Plot Summary

A sparkling debut mystery set on the south side of Chicago, featuring the quick-witted, unforgettable Savvy Summers, proprietor of a soul food café.

When Savvy Summers first opened Essie's soul food café, she never expected her customer-favorite sweet potato pie to become the center of a murder investigation. But when Grandy Jaspers, the 75-year-old neighborhood womanizer, drops dead at table two, she suddenly has more to worry about than just maintaining Essie's reputation for the finest soul food in the Chicagoland area.

Even as the police deem Grandy’s death an accident, Savvy quickly finds herself—and her beloved café—in the middle of an entire city’s worth of bad press. Desperate to clear her name and keep her business afloat, Savvy and her snooping assistant manager, Penny Lopés, take it upon themselves to find who really killed Grandy.

But with a slimy investor harassing her to sell her name and business, customers avoiding her sweet potato pie like the plague, and her police sergeant ex-husband suddenly back in the picture, will Savvy be able to clear the café’s name and solve Grandy’s murder before it all falls apart?

After all, while Savvy always said her sweet potato pie was to die for, she never meant literally.