Synopsis

When Amy Ridley decided to compete in the Kellerton Summer Festival Pie Contest, the last thing she expected was to find the reigning pie queen, Mandy Jo, dead—a raspberry pie smashed on her face! Mandy Jo made fantastic pies, but she accumulated more enemies than baking trophies. But when Amy receives a note threatening her own life, she decides to do some investigating herself.

It seems that half the town has a reason to kill the mean pie queen, and Amy finds herself sifting through a list of suspects that’s longer than her list of recipes. Not to mention playing cupid for her love-shy best friend, fending off a baker intent on finding out her prize-winning culinary secrets, and ducking the deadly attentions of Mandy Jo’s killer. If Amy doesn’t find out who wanted the pie queen dead soon, her own goose may be cooked!

Review

I have mixed feelings on this book. While I liked it overall (especially the food recipes!), as the books switched between Amy and Carla it made the book feel jumpy. Yes they are best friends and Carla helped Amy with her thought process, but the switch just felt weird and didn’t seem to flow well IMHO.

I didn’t care for Amy’s character. Must be nice to marry well and stay home and develop recipes for contests, but she fell flat as a main protagonist. She seemed wishy-washy, but the one thing I can say is that when it came down to taking down the killer she didn’t put herself in harm’s way. Sort of unusual for a cozy.

Her best friend Carla has a relationship with the lead detective, which she partially started at Amy’s behest but there are sparks between the two of them. She seems like a more likely protagonist and more level headed.

I think the series has potential and hopefully future books have made Amy more likable and less insipid.  We give this book 3 paws.