Looking for some way to enjoy the new year? Love reading books? (Why else are you on this site?) Check out some Bookish Ways to Celebrate the New Year for some ideas to make 2023 extra special.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
If you are a big ready of cozy mysteries, this book may completely turn your expectations on their heads. Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies, Misha Popp’s debut book, will shock readers.
What’s so different about protagonist Daisy Ellery? How about the fact that she makes murder pies? She creates deadly pies with a sinister purpose—to do away with men who abuse women. Her Pie Girl brand is a cover for her underground business, Pies Before Guys, her own little Murder, Inc., where she creates and distributes murder pies to take out the abusers.
In this first book in the series, Daisy’s organization has been infiltrated by someone with his own plans of revenge. He wants to send murder pies to three women under threat of revealing Daisy’s dastardly doings. It is up to Daisy to figure out who is blackmailing her and how to ensure the safety of the women.
I am enjoying this book quite a bit, but can’t figure out why Daisy keeps locking up her pit bull to keep him away from the action while she goes out to investigate intruders in the dark by herself, armed with only a rolling pin.
“That looks amazing,” he says.
Misha Popp, Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies
“It’s to die for.”
Summary
Daisy Ellery’s pies have a secret ingredient: The magical ability to avenge women done wrong by men. But Daisy finds herself on the receiving end in Misha Popp’s cozy series debut, a sweet-as-buttercream treat for fans of Ellery Adams and Mary Maxwell.
The first time Daisy Ellery killed a man with a pie, it was an accident. Now, it’s her calling. Daisy bakes sweet vengeance into her pastries, which she and her dog Zoe deliver to the men who’ve done dirty deeds to the town’s women. But if she can’t solve the one crime that’s not of her own baking, she’ll be out of the pie pan and into the oven.
Parking her Pies Before Guys mobile bakery van outside the local diner, Daisy is informed by Frank, the crusty diner owner, that someone’s been prowling around the van—and not just to inhale the delectable aroma. Already on thin icing with Frank, she finds a letter on her door, threatening to reveal her unsavory secret sideline of pie a la murder.
Blackmail? But who whipped up this half-baked plot to cut a slice out of Daisy’s business? Purple-haired campus do-gooder Melly? Noel, the tender—if flaky—farm boy? Or one of the abusive men who prefer their pie without a deadly scoop of payback?
The upcoming statewide pie contest could be Daisy’s big chance to help wronged women everywhere…if she doesn’t meet a sticky end first. Because Daisy knows the blackmailer won’t stop until her business is in crumbles.
I love the title. Magic, lies and deadly pies. Cover looks cute too. I hope you enjoy the book.
Here’s my teaser.