I thought it
appropriate to review Pies and Prejudice
by Ellery Adams on what we used to celebrate as George Washington’s birthday
and now call Presidents Day. George Washington was fabled to have cut down a
cherry tree and fessed up to his deed, and what better use for all those
cherries than to make pie. But Ms. Adam’s main character, Ella Mae, dishes up
more than organic ingredients when she bakes.
Pies and Prejudice
is the first novel in the Charmed Pie Shoppe series, which I assumed was a cozy
mystery because of the other traditional series I’ve read by Ellery Adams and
those she has written as Jennifer Stanley and J.B. Stanley, and in part it is a
traditional cozy. But I also found an element of mysticism reminiscent of those
early novels by Alice Hoffman that I hold dear.
Ella Mae finds her
husband in flagrante delicto with two redheads in their NYC apartment house
elevator a week before she would have graduated from culinary school. Accompanied
by her Jack Russell terrier, she returns to her hometown in Georgia, where her
mother’s three sisters, their housekeeper and her mother, with whom she has an
uneasy relationship, live. Going home is fraught with past relationship
problems, the reason she ran away to marry. She finds her mother unfathomable.
Loralyn, her childhood nemesis, continues to bash her at every opportunity. Hugh
Dylan, an unrequited childhood crush, interests her when she least needs
another man in her life, one who may not be worthy of her. With her family’s
help, she opens a pie shop.
But the opening is marred by a man’s murder. The victim was
found holding a rolling pin identified as Ella Mae’s by her fingerprints. Ella Mae must solve the murder to absolve
herself, discover her magic, and neutralize Loralyn’s power over her.
Pies and Prejudice
is not a book for those who need a romantic male lead with whom the heroine
absconds with in a HEA ending. It is a book for survivors who would still like
to think that life and magic are not mutually exclusive or dependent on the big
“L.” I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series, Peach Pies and Alibis. This series is
for grown ups who have taken their knocks, clenched their teeth and still say
yes.
It sounds like an excellent series, and one I'd like to read. Who among us who are a little older haven't experienced life's knocks, and most of us have sucked it all in and gone on.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, Gloria. Even at younger ages, heartbreaks occur.
ReplyDeleteNot only did I like this series, but over the weekend I read another first in series by Ellery Adams, Every Trick In The Book, a Novel Idea Mystery. I liked that series too. How do the authors have time to write up to three series at once?
It sounds like Ellery Adams wrote a strong but sympathetic main character that readers will care about.
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered how authors write more than one series at a time. Three must be a juggling act.
I'm not sure how they do it either, Kara. But most of these writers have been writing for so long and at last have the opportunity, I think they just go for it and make it work. But they must write for at least 8 hours every day. If you are getting paid, I guess it is the same as other jobs.
ReplyDelete