Oh Savvy Summers, I adore you! This was such a fun cozy mystery with a host of interesting characters. I love cozy mysteries and especially ones with BIPOC characters and this one did not disappoint. Savvy Summers, restauranteur and caterer finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery involving one of her faithful restaurant patrons. Savvy is on the case to find out “whodunnit” and clear her and her restaurant’s good name. Usually in a cozy mystery you might be able to guess who the culprit is before the big reveal, but I was genuinely surprised!

I also loved that the author included recipes for some of those yummy dishes mentioned throughout the book, I look forward to reading more about Savvy’s sleuthing adventures in subsequent books!

Really enjoyed "Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes
A Mystery" by Sandra Jackson-Opoku. Sassy and smart main character with good dose of local color with charming southern expressions and descriptions of soul food. Would be nice if this becomes a series.

This book was entertaining, engaging and made me hungry.

The story opened at a wedding anniversary party which caused my stomach to rumble. I wanted to taste a little bit of everything: mac and cheese, chicken, perch, green salad, coleslaw, squash casserole, green beans, red potatoes, biscuits and cornbread. And then the desserts: pineapple upside down cake, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie. I would have been filling up my plate.

It was a cozy crime mystery with a glimpse of living in Chicago. The first chapter exploded with characters but after that, it got down to business with Savvy at her beloved café of scrumptious sole food. She was busy with her catering company but also involved in investigating two possible murders. She encountered crooked politicians and lawyers working on their own agendas.

Savvy made this book just like an actor becomes the star of a show. I could hear her voice. I could see her working at all hours in the café. I could feel the cold air when she was shivering. Savvy and many of the women were strong in the story. These were women in all sorts of situations who learned from a young age to stand up for themselves.

Much of the soul food and language came the Southern Black roots when they moved to Chicago. It was lively and vibrant filled with energy.

My thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of July 29, 2025.

I received a free DRC of this book through Netgalley. Savvy is a do-it-all kinda woman. She runs a successful restaurant and is still grieving the loss of her 2nd husband. As a vegetarian, I appreciate that she is trying to incorporate vegan versions of soul food into her business. Reading about the food and having the recipes included was most appreciated. She also is an amateur detective after 2 men die in mysterious circumstances near her sweet potato pies. She needs to clear her name while staying safe. I liked the creativity of her detective methods and the book felt like a total experience. I was immersed in the south side of Chicago and with her friends and other contacts. I was able to picture the characters and the scenes easily. I enjoyed this book.

3.5

This ended up being a pretty entertaining book. It was a fun and cozy murder mystery. It was a bit chaotic, but overall pretty funny. I loved all the southern food mentioned through out, and that there were even recipes included at the end. Savvy Summers was a great character, and hopefully will be solving even more mysteries in the future. Would be interested to see what becomes of some of the other characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"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."

And now I want pie.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes is a humorous, cozy mystery. What sets it apart from others in the genre is Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s intentional focus on bringing multicultural perspectives to the story, a refreshing and welcomed addition.

The first half of the story was slower than I’d hoped. There’s a heavy emphasis on character development, including for characters who didn't seem central to the plot. Additionally, as a younger millennial and a New Englander, many of the older pop culture and Chicago-specific references went over my head, which left me feeling a bit disconnected from the story at times.

I really enjoyed the book starting at the 75% mark, as that’s when the plot really picks up momentum. From that point on, I was more engaged with the mystery and invested in how it would all unfold.

Overall, a unique take on the cozy mystery that's worth the read if you enjoy character-driven fiction!

Note: Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for the eARC!

This cozy mystery had some fun elements — I especially enjoyed the spotlight on soul food and the strong sense of community. However, I found the pacing uneven, which made the reading experience feel a bit disjointed. There were so many characters that it was sometimes hard to stay grounded in the story, and the main mystery didn’t quite deliver the payoff I was hoping for, as it more or less resolved itself rather than being actively solved. While this book wasn’t quite the right fit for me, I know there are plenty of readers who enjoy this style of cozy and will likely connect more with its voice and cultural richness.

Readers, we have a new amateur sleuth to enjoy! Sapphire (Savvy) Summers is a small town cafe owner thrown into a murder mystery when a man drops dead in her establishment. Along with a small group of other characters interested in digging into the truth, Savvy is determined to get to the bottom of what happened after the dead man ate of her famous sweet potato pie.

I really appreciate Savvy as a lead character. Her storied past lent a lot towards my interest in this story. She's been married twice, and death seems to be a phenomenon that haunts her. It's the little details of character that really make them robust, and I really felt that with Savvy.

This book just impressed me more than many other cozy mysteries I've picked up. Maybe this isn't even technically a cozy mystery? Maybe this is more of a contemporary mystery? I'm no expert, but this book had just enough whimsy and soul to balance the technical details of the mystery to make this quite an enjoyable read.

It looks like this is the first of a series of books, and I am certainly interested in continuing to read what Savvy gets up to next!

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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

This book is a hard one for me to review - I did enjoy the cozy mystery aspect, but the book itself felt a little disjointed.
A small town diner/catering company owner finds herself in the middle of multiple murders, which no one but her seems to realize are murders?
The character is described to be older but acts much younger in my opinion, and there was A LOT of calling people by their full government names first middle last and nicknames if given one.
The mystery was good but the rest of it fell a little flat for me.

Thanks to Netgalley & St. Martin's Press for the
E-ARC! Really enjoyed! Fun setting & great characters. Perfect cozy read!

A lovely little cozy mystery set in a cafe - what's not to like? AND it's set in Chicago!

This book has a good mystery plot, although it does take a while to get into it; a lot of the characters are unlikeable so I needed Savvy and Penny to keep me invested. There is a lot of backstory that isn't immediately relevant to the mystery, but it adds to the "cozy" element. I was - as usual - suspicious of everyone and didn't easily figure out who the Viagra-bandit was.

All-in-all, this is a great poolside read!

3.5 stars rounded up for the clever ending.

I had a difficult time translating some of the language in this book. I think the author called it Black Speak, a combination of deep Southern cant and Chicagoan street slang ...so I'm White and a New Englander, and therefore you can understand some of my ignorance!

Besides the language, I had trouble with a few things in this novel that I don't think anyone else will find problematic. Too many characters, not enough solid explanations for the reason why some things were happening, large skips in the timeline with no explanation, etc.

However, once I just let myself fall into the story, I found myself enjoying it, and it shocked the heck out of me to find out who did it and why! This was not quite a cozy mystery, but it was heart-warming, and I loved the recipes at the back of the book, as well as the explanations of some of Aunt Essie's Epithets.

ARC provided by the publisher Macmillan Publishers/Minotaur Books, the author, and NetGalley.

Savvy Summers owns a cafe in the South Side of Chicago. She was catering an anniversary party and the next day the morning Granderson Jaspers (the husband from the party) comes in and falls dead in her restaurant. Rumors started flying that it was Savvy’s sweet potato pie. Later on it comes out that Grandy was drugged and died from an overdose of viagra. Savvy is trying to find out who did it and how to stop them. People have stopped coming to her cafe. She suspects all kinds of people, even Grandy’s own wife Mattie. This was a fun cozy mystery, but I got a little confused with all the characters and it didn't hold my attention in the beginning. I also didn’t care for the whole viagra plot line, but all in all a good book!

Thank you to Sandra Jackson-Opoku, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: July 29, 2025

Great story set in the Chicagoland area. Essie's goal is to maintain the good name of her soul food cafe . An exepected death of a customer leads to bad publicity and more.

I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. Definately worth reading!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

Many thanks to Minotaur Books, NetGalley, and Sandra Jackson-Opoku for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review💚

I enjoyed this trip with Savvy as she solved the predicaments in front of her. Jackson-Opoku has a way of world building and storytelling that really pulls you in and grabs your attention for the long hall. As the lore of this cast of characters unfolded, I found myself getting more invested in their lives and how this would all come together.

The mystery portion of this book is solid; theories are put out, investigated, and explained thoroughly and thoughtfully. There are also lots of tidbits/Chekhov’s guns (one of my favorite elements of a mystery) throughout the book that are dropped and followed up with great timing and relevance, pulling motives and explanations together in a satisfying manner.

The narrative weaved about the characters outside of the mystery was even more intriguing. I learned so much about everyone and it felt necessary that I learned this information instead of fluff to fill space. While some of the things about the main characters weren’t fully fleshed out, it was obvious that the information was foundational and will be addressed at a later date.

I do wish it didn’t take as long as it did to solve the mystery, as I felt there were moments that didn’t need to be as drawn out as they were. While it is great for creating a fully fleshed out narrative, it sometimes gets in the way of pulling together clues and piecing together the mystery.

I’m not the biggest reader of cozy mysteries, but I am very interested to see what Savvy and her crew get into next!

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes is a fun cozy mystery by Sandra Jackson-Opoku. Savvy is a middle-aged divorcee who runs her own soul food café. When an eccentric old man dies in her restaurant, followed soon by another, Savvy and her best friend/café assistant manager decide to get to the bottom of it.

I really enjoyed the location and vibe of this mystery. Savvy is pretty up front with her feelings, and she is old enough to know what’s what. She does some snooping but doesn’t do anything really stupid like running into dangerous situations. She’s more likely to get into trouble from helping someone and being kind to the wrong person. The closest side characters are pretty well fleshed out, and their conversations are often amusing.
There are a lot of moving parts to this; along with the deaths, there is the question about why someone is so interested in franchising Savvy’s business, a potential romance, the backstories and motives of a fairly large cast of suspects, and how they all relate to each other. It’s handled pretty well but it does slow down the pacing in some parts.

Overall, though, this is a very enjoyable mystery with some great references and even better Old Aunt Essie-isms tossed in. I’d definitely read another if this turns into a series.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.
4 stars

A charming cozy mystery with Southern flair, steady pacing, and a satisfying conclusion—even if the emotional stakes fall short.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes delivers what it promises: a cozy whodunit centered around a Southern-raised chef navigating a murder mystery tied to her restaurant. The pacing is smooth throughout, and the setting—while technically Chicago—feels much more like a small Southern town due to the cultural voice and vivid inclusion of euphemisms and sayings from Savvy’s great-aunt Essie. This thread of Southern wisdom is one of the book’s most engaging elements.

However, the book does suffer from a lack of emotional and narrative depth. Savvy’s motivations for solving the first crime felt thin at best, although a second crime later in the story helped anchor her involvement more convincingly. Subplots are sparse, and outside of solving the murder and keeping her restaurant afloat, Savvy doesn’t have much going on—which limits emotional investment.

The twists, while present, are predictable. I correctly guessed the resolution fairly early, which took some punch out of the final act. Still, the book wraps up cleanly and delivers the closure cozy mystery readers expect. Red herrings and clue placement were adequate, though not particularly clever.

This is a straightforward mystery—nothing groundbreaking, but solidly executed for its genre. Readers looking for something light and engaging will enjoy it, especially those who appreciate stories infused with cultural identity and familial wisdom.

Now this was a funny mystery! Essie and the character’s charm grabbed my attention from the first chapter. The plot is full of twists and turns, and I could not figure this story out right away! Unlike many mysteries where you can figure things out too quickly, this one kept me guessing

Thank you Netgalley, and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for the ARC and opportunity to provide an honest review.