Thank you, Sandra Jackson-Opoku, Netgalley, and St. Martin’s Press, for the advance copy of Savvy Summer and the Sweet Potato Crimes

 

 

Savvy Summers owns a soul food café on the south side of Chicago. Everything was going for her until a customer fatality occurred after consuming her sweet potato pies. Now she is accused of murdering the customer. Savvy’s reputation is ruined. Her customer base dwindled because of the circulating rumors. Savvy investigates to save her café and other people’s lives.

 

 

Savvy Summers is an excellent cook and baker. Summers uses her grandmother Essie’s recipes, which keep the people coming. Essie’s recipes are traditional soul food recipes, but Savvy puts her spin on them. Despite her success, a few terrible customers make her job harder.

The Grady Jaspers’ family is also included. She also has a competitor who wants her to lose her business. An investor also wants her to sell her name and café. Some of the book’s interesting characters contribute to its readability.


The protagonist is a business-minded woman who is also a keen observer. She makes interesting and delicious recipes. She mixes her family’s soul food with her more modern takes. I appreciate the character’s insights into the origins of certain dishes. Her eye for detail can be seen in her recipes, but how she describes others. It can be amusing, although some might see comedy in fat shaming. Her words of wisdom were wonderful. These words remind me of things my grandmother would say.

 
The book offered a blend of suspense and humor. It was slow-paced but worth the wait to see the last scene.

SAVVY SUMMERS AND THE SWEET POTATO CRIMES is the debut mystery by Sandra Jackson-Opoku. Set in Chicago, protagonist Savvy Summers is the café owner of Essie’s and is famous for her sweet potato pies. Her right-hand gal, Penny Lopés, brings humor and attitude to the pages, while assisting Savvy at the café and in her amateur sleuthing. There are great one liner zingers and lots of sassafras and fun as the pair interact. The author writes a very clever “death by Viagra” murder mystery… who knew such a popular drug could kill? The mystery is well-plotted, but the pace was a bit sporadic as there are so many characters (some very unlikeable) to keep track of. With one of the murders taking place during a fiftieth blowout anniversary celebration, there were suspects galore, and I was kept guessing until the very end. I enjoyed the subplot of a developer trying to take over Savvy’s café and all the surrounding businesses and how it united the characters. Overall, this was a good start to what could easily become a great series!

I DNF this book, I just couldn’t get into the story. The story didn’t keep my attention! Too slow moving for me. Therefore, I will let other reviewers who enjoy this book promote it, so I will not be posting on social media or reviews on retail sites. That way, this book gets much deserved attention from those reviewers who loved it!

This was a cute and fun cozy once I could get into it. It took me a while to get through because it did not hook me right away. I liked the setting and the characters but felt there were so many characters to keep track of, especially at the beginning. The build up was good but this was an okay book for me. Did not love it and it would not be a book I recommended to others.

This book is a slow start and I put it down and picked it up half a dozen times before I got to the meat of the story. As Savvy starts investigating, the story starts to blossom, then I found I was invested and wanted to know what was going to happen. This book is a fun mystery that kept me wondering.

This one had a lot of promise, and I genuinely enjoyed the vibrant food descriptions and the sprinkling of idioms throughout—it gave the writing some charm and texture. The setup was appealing, and I was hoping for a cozy, engaging mystery with heart.

Unfortunately, the pacing didn’t quite work for me. The story moved slowly, and I found it difficult to stay fully engaged. The mystery felt a bit underwhelming, and I never felt deeply connected to the characters, which made it hard to invest in the outcome.

That said, I can absolutely see this finding its audience—especially among readers who enjoy quieter mysteries with a strong cultural backdrop and a focus on food and family dynamics.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this mystery and enjoyed the characters. Savvy was quick-witted and relatable, and the storyline was enjoyable. I loved the bonus recipes included at the end. If this is the first in a series, I look forward to what Savvy gets up to next.

A Mississippi hearted girl in Chicago- sign me up. This mystery ditty follows our grandmotherly main character as she aims to find a killer who is potentially teaming her for serial murder behind her deliciously baked pie. While the mystery aspect here fell somewhat flat for me, I loved the characters and the whimsical settings and locations. The author penned such lush back stories for everyone involved, and the down south idioms were to die for. My main struggle with this one was how the timeline was on display- so much of the dialogue included life both past and present, which kind of muddled up the plot for me? The most action I saw kicked in around 70% of the book for me, so I'd have liked a tighter plot progression in some spots. I think every other thing about this one is so promising, and so good- I'd read more from this author, no doubt. Thank you to much to the author and publisher for the chance to review an eARC!

The food descriptions in this book. Oh man, I was always hungry when reading it. I think my favorite thing about the book is that there are recipes as the end! If I’d known that then I would’ve made some to enjoy while reading it 😂

The book was slow to get started and had a LOT of characters. It was a bit hard to keep up with them all and figure out who is who.

First, I would like to thank NetGalley, the author, and the publishers for sending me this book and giving me the opportunity to read and honestly review it.

Savvy is a restaurant owner, who is hired to cater a wedding anniversary party. But not long after the party is over, the husband drops dead in her restaurant. Everyone suspects Savvy Summers, but why would she sabotage her own restaurant after she inherited it from her beloved Aunt.
Savvy is challenged to solve not one but two murders in this book. Can she save her reputation and find the person(s) who committed these crimes?

Overall, I loved the main character Savvy and her narrations throughout the book. At first, I was overwhelmed by all the characters and their names, but as I kept reading, remembering them all was not an issue. The plot was interesting; and the ending fit the story very well.

Soul Food and Murder: A Delicious New Mystery Series Arrives

Sandra Jackson-Opoku's debut mystery novel serves up exactly what you didn't know you were craving: a soul food café owner who solves crimes between cooking up collard greens and cornbread.

Set in Chicago's South Side, the story follows Savvy Summers, whose sharp mind matches her name. She's the kind of protagonist who feels real from page one - the sort of person you'd trust both with your dinner plans and your deepest secrets. When trouble starts brewing in her neighbourhood, Savvy proves she can handle the heat in more ways than one.

Jackson-Opoku writes like someone who knows both her spices and her streets. Every scene drips with authenticity, from the steam rising off a pot of black-eyed peas to the gossip floating through local barbershops. Her experience crafting award-winning literary fiction shows in the quality of her prose, but she keeps things moving at a brisk clip that mystery lovers will appreciate.

The supporting cast sparkles with personality, each character adding their own distinct seasoning to this literary gumbo. The mystery itself unwinds with plenty of surprises, though some readers might find themselves lingering too long in Savvy's kitchen between clues. But even these slower moments have their charm, especially when they lead to the collection of soul food recipes tucked into the back of the book.

For anyone who loves their mysteries with a side of comfort food, Savvy Summers delivers a satisfying first course in what promises to be a feast of a series. Just don't read it on an empty stomach.

4.5/5 stars

For fans of Hannah Swensen's sweet treats and Goldy Schulz's culinary adventures, but with a whole lot more soul.

This was a fun summer read!
I was definitely surprised by how much I enjoyed this little mystery.
It’s surprisingly fast and the characters are great.

As a cozy mystery, this one was fine. It took a really long time for it to get going (I mean...she didn't even consider investigating the murder or getting the ex-husband-cop involved until 25% of the way in). I loved the setting and the soul food descriptions, but it leaned a little too heavy on Essie's sayings than saying something itself. I think Savvy thought she was a much better detective than she actually was, if that makes sense? A lot of things just happened to her instead of Savvy investigating (or using her lie-dar).

Oh well. It's always good to see a more diverse offering of cozy mysteries, especially when they have recipes included.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Savvy Summers, now retired, is running Essie's Place cafe in the Woodlawn area of Chicago. The next day, after she catered a 50th anniversary party for friends, the husband comes into the cafe, orders his usual and dies of a heart attack. All of her customers think it was her late aunts famous sweet potato pie that was poisoned and stop coming in. As she soon finds out from her ex-husband, a police officer, that the man died from an overdose that stopped his heart. Savvy, along with her sous-chef and friend, Penny, start to ask questions as to who might have caused his death and it wasn't her food. When another death occurs in a similar manner, Savvy has a list of suspects: the wife, the girlfriend, the band manager, a realtor and even a cameraman. But as she gets closer to the truth, she is putting herself in danger.
A highly enjoyable cozy mystery, with quirky characters, a smart and funny heroine and Chicagoland locales.
Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read this e-galley of "Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes".

Rounding up from 3.5⭐. This book was a nice cozy mystery. The characters were all painted well enough to be able to envision them. I just found the story a bit slow moving and occasionally lost my interest. However whole my initial suspicions were right, I was still second guessing myself for a good part of the story.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes
by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
7059805
Kristi Lamont's reviewApr 26, 2025 · edit
really liked it

BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes, by Sandra Jackson-Opoku, from St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

OK, I’m about as white and middle-aged lady as one gets. So take EVERYTHING I have to say in that context.

First of which, is, SISTER-GIRL? (Yeah, yeah, I know that I am not supposed to say SISTER-GIRL if I’m not black. But goodness, gracious, the lifelong friends that I have, my own background….yeah, I’m gonna go there.)

What in the WORLD are you doing writing about black-eyed pea fritters, served in Chicago by the descendants of ancestors from the South, without including a specific recipe for Mississippi Comeback Sauce?

Second of all, why in the world would say this doesn’t look like a typical cozy? It totally does!

Next of all, what a love letter to Chicago, and the black migration back in the day, and to families, in all their love and mess.

Were the various mysteries seen/solved about a mile and a half out coming? Well, yeah, of course. Were some of the characters bordering on/if not right out caricatures? Well, yeah, of course.

But wouldn’t you expect all that from a first in a series? I sure did.

Can’t wait to read more.

DESCRIPTION
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.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku has interesting characters and a Chicago setting, and with the addition of good food, was a fun mystery to read. Savvy Summers has a soul food cafe that she is trying to keep open despite a murder. She and her coworker Penny Lopes and her detective ex husband tackle solving the case while fending off developers. This was a very fun read with a lot of history to learn.

I really enjoyed Savvy and her adventures in this story! It is the beginning of a series so it does have a lot of introductions at the start but that is just so much fun, getting to know the "players" in this adventure and murder mystery. I also adore the food talk. I am a foodie at heart so talking food, and learning about new foods, is just my vibe. The action and mystery is right on point and the pacing is a delight. I loved this story and everything about it! I want a copy for my physical library. I cannot wait for the next in this series! Savvy is my new leading cozy lady!!

This is a fun and different cozy, one in which the mystery itself is less important than the life of the amateur sleuth working on it. Nobody liked the victim much anyway. The evocation of South Side Chicago, especially from the standpoint of a soul food restauranteuse, made for a fascinating escape. The constant descriptions of the food bring prepared and eaten had me salivating most of the time I was reading, and they figure nicely into the story. The author provides some explanations of the phrases being used - she called them epithets but I would call them proverbs - and in fine cozy tradition, she also provides some recipes (I really wanted the one for smothered chicken but I think I can figure it out now). I've only been to Chicago one time in my life, but I think I'll have to get back there again.

I really enjoyed this cozy mystery set in the Chicago area. There were plenty plot of twists, the characters were interesting, the setting was well described and used to advantage and I really enjoyed the local slang used throughout and thought it made the characters seem more real. I would absolutely read more in this series!!

Thanks to Netgalley, Minotaur Books, and Sandra Jackson-Opoku for this ebook arc to read. All opinions are my own.