This was just a lot of fun. It’s not quite a cozy mystery as I expected, nor, in fact, is it much of a mystery at all, despite the cover design and the ‘Pies Before Guys Mystery’ branding. Rather, it’s more of a lighthearted contemporary with magic and thrillerish elements.

Daisy Ellery is gifted with the ability to infuse her pies with magic. Sometimes, as with the pies she bakes for a diner in exchange for getting to use their kitchen, she infuses her pies with nostalgia and a touch of home. Other times, as with the pies she sells from her food truck / mobile home at a bustling college campus, she adds a touch of calm and mental clarity. And then there are the pies she bakes for men who abuse women, which, depending on their capacity to change, either gets them to stop the abuse completely, or kills them without a trace. Those pies are available only through word of mouth, for women Daisy meets at support groups, or women who have been referred to Daisy’s Pies Before Guys business by satisfied customers. In making them, Daisy also abides by a few core rules, such as no killing innocents, and no killing women.

Unfortunately, someone is on to Daisy’s secret. They send an order, not through the Pies Before Guys app that maintains Daisy’s anonymity, but with an anonymous note dropped off at Daisy’s mobile home. The note gives her a list of three women, with no context around why the person wants them dead, and threatens to reveal Daisy’s secret if she doesn’t comply.

The note-writer’s identity forms the central mystery of the novel, as Daisy scrambles to protect herself and the life she’s built. However, the big reveal happens about halfway through, and the novel is really more about how Daisy responds to this reveal, and how she comes to terms with her particular brand of magic.

As interesting as the blackmail subplot was, I was more drawn to Daisy’s grappling with her place in her family’s history. Both her mother and grandmother used their magic purely for good, either in making clothes or styling hair. While Daisy comforts herself that her pies kill only men who can’t change for the better, she can’t help but feel that she’s broken somehow, that the darker application of her magic reflects something darker in herself. I love her journey of self-exploration, and I absolutely love the strong bonds she still clearly feels with the women in her ancestral line. I hope future books in this series dig a bit deeper into her family history, and reveal a bit more, to both Daisy and to us, about this wonderfully rich matrilineal line of magic.

I also adored the romantic subplot in this novel. There was a love triangle element, involving both a male love interest and a female one, which I don’t see too often, so that’s super cool. The love triangle did feel organic at first, but I admit one of the potential love interests annoyed me to the point that the love triangle began to feel forced halfway through the novel. One of the love interests just struck me as too narrow-minded, and I think they would have hindered Daisy’s growth. And later in the novel, this character also engaged in some truly toxic behaviour; they totally disregarded Daisy’s boundaries, and attempted a horrifically misguided grand romantic gesture. The narrative seems to frame them as misguided more than malicious, but I legit considered them a mini-villain at points. All that to say, I’m glad the romantic subplot turned out the way it did, and I was super cheering the couple on the entire way.

And I especially love that the author also delves into the more mundane aspects of Daisy’s pie-baking. There’s a subplot about her entering a pie-making contest, and I loved reading about the recipe she created for it. Honestly, that pie sounds delicious, and while I’m not even much of a pie fan, the author’s descriptions made me super crave Daisy’s pie. The author does included some recipes at the end, for any readers who also love to bake. Daisy also reveals the non-magical magic secret to her pie: she uses sugar rather than beans or weights to blind bake her crust. The sugar caramelizes while the crust bakes, which adds to the crust’s flavour, and the roasted sugar is then used to sweeten future pies. The technique sounds intriguing, and if I ever do get to making a pie, I may try it for myself!

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Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

And Then There Were None is by far one of my most favourite Agatha Christie novels, so this contemporary homage to the concept definitely hooked me in! Nine people from across America all receive an identical note in the mail: a list of their names. None of them know the others, and none of them could think of a reason why anyone would hold a grudge against them. Yet, one by one, the people on the list end up getting killed. And the FBI is frantically trying to track down the killer before the next victim.

It’s a classic set-up for a thriller, and Swanson does a great job in introducing us to his large cast of characters. He gives us just enough detail to make us care whether a character lives or dies (one person in particular made me actively wishing the killer would move them up the list), without overwhelming us with so much detail we can no longer keep the characters straight.

I had a particular soft spot for two of the characters — a musician who was inspired by the list to write a love song, and an English teacher who lived with her two cats — and I absolutely love how the random experience of both being on a murder list led them to find, and semi-fall for, each other. I also must give kudos to Swanson in setting up one of the people on the list, an FBI agent, as the super obvious primary point of view character, only to prove me wrong partway through. While the novel does track the investigation into the series of murders, we mostly see it unfold through the eyes of the characters on the list more than through the FBI agents investigating the deaths. This adds to the classic, Christie-ish feel of the mystery, and just as we root for the characters on the island in And Then There Were None, we also can’t help but root for the various ordinary people who are trying to outrun their fates.

It’s a testament to Swanson’s characterization that some of the deaths made me truly sad. Even with characters who appeared for only a couple of chapters, I could feel the loss of their passing. The murderer’s motivation was as convoluted and personal as anything out of Christie, and while part of me figures I really should have seen that reveal coming, I applaud the author for keeping me genuinely in the dark until the final two names.

The novel isn’t perfect — the overt references to And Then There Were None got a bit too repetitive after a while, and a last minute reveal, while making the ending semi-happy, seemed totally random and unwarranted. But overall, it’s a lovely read, and I’d recommend it for fans of classic whodunnits.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is such an adorable, heartwarming, and sweet romance, an utter delight to read from beginning to end! Kaylee is a fan fiction writer, at a hotel for a convention for the Sherlock Holmes show The Great Game. They’re excited to meet online friends, try out they/them pronouns for the first time, and also, kiss a girl for the first time. Teagan is Miss Virginia at a teen pageant in the same hotel. She wants to win for the scholarship money, and she has big plans of finally coming out as lesbian once she enters college and is free of the conservative (read: homophobic) pageant world. Teagan’s a secret fangirl at heart, so she sneaks into a convention party where Kaylee’s dancing with some friends, and, well, the sparks start flying.

Both main characters are new to queer romance, and both are still in the process of figuring out their respective sexualities. So the romance between them is honestly one of the sweetest I’ve read in a while. Teagan’s blushes as she notices how sexy Kaylee looks in their soldier John Watson cosplay is just adorable, and I like how part of what catches Teagan’s eye is how the costume plays with male and female gender expressions without quite fully committing to either. And Kaylee’s flurry of text messages to their friends about making out with Teagan, coupled with their friends’ excited squeeing in return, just took me back to high school, and all the fun, uncomplicated joys of having a crush like you back. The author does a great job of describing the giddiness and sheer enjoyment of first love, and from their first meeting to the final page, I was 100% shipping Kaylee and Teagan the entire time.

I also love the storylines the author crafted for both main characters beyond the romance. I love Teagan’s friendship with fellow pageant contestant Jess. So much of what we see about beauty pageants in media focuses on the cutthroat nature of the competition, or the over-the-top controlling nature of pageant moms. But this book shows as well the mutual respect that can develop alongside intense rivalries, and the bonds of friendship that can form when you grow up together in the same competition circuit. In a similar way, Kaylee has their real-life best friend Ami, and their online friends Cake and Lady, whom they meet for the first time at the convention. I love how the author explores this side of online friendships, how people can form supportive networks online, and how for some, it can be easier to be themselves online than in real life.

Similarly, I love how both Teagan and Kaylee have strong interests in stuff beyond the pageant and the convention. I thought the subplot about Kaylee’s fanfic fame and writing competition seemed a bit unrealistic, but I’m also the first to admit that’s likely just my envy talking, as there are indeed real-life seventeen-year-olds who find similar success. I did find myself more drawn to Teagan’s backstory, with her interest in art, her mom’s death by suicide, and her resulting ambition to become an art therapist. I love how all of that played out in the pageant, and I absolutely love how it paid off for her in the finals.

My one (minor) snag is that I wish the villain got her just desserts. In a rather convenient coincidence, both Kaylee and Teagan share the same nemesis: Madison, a.k.a. Miss North Carolina. The Regina George of Kaylee’s school, Madison bullies Kaylee constantly, to the point that Kaylee feels genuine fear when they see her at the hotel. She also seems intent on sabotaging Teagan’s chances at winning, so as to improve her own, and I don’t know if she just has a hate-on for Teagan, or if she’s just as shady with the other contestants. At the hotel, she commits a couple of acts of what I consider violence against the leads. No spoilers, but I think one would be enough to earn her a suspension if she did it in school, and the other should have gotten her disqualified from the pageant if she’d been caught. Madison doesn’t quite succeed in getting everything she wants at the end, yet she also seems to have gotten off really lightly, and I can’t help wishing that some more karma had come her way.

Still, all that being said, the overall impression left by this book is one of joy. Kaylee and Teagan are really sweet protagonists, and I loved watching them grow together and towards their happily ever after.

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Thank you to St Martin’s Press for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.