Lemon Pies and Little White Lies (Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery, #4)

by Ellery Adams

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Books by the Bay series and the Book Retreat mysteries--Includes pie recipes!

After Pecan Pies and Homicides comes another tangy slice of life—and death—in a charmed, and charming, small town...
 
Ella Mae LeFaye’s Charmed Pie Shoppe has become a phenomenon beyond her wildest dreams, providing the enchanted town of Havenwood, Georgia, with spellbinding desserts and magical pies. Her personal life is also heating up as she takes on the responsibilities of leadership within her magical community. In fact, the only thing weighing her down is the fact that handsome Hugh Dylan won’t return her calls…
 
Still, when Havenwood is rocked by a series of mysterious deaths, Ella Mae must put romantic longings aside—especially when she realizes that the mystical symbols left at each crime scene are dangerously personal. Now she will have to whip up all her supernatural skills to uncover a killer out to settle an ancient score—before the murderer devastates everything Ella Mae is determined to protect…

• ISBN10: 0425276023
• ISBN13: 9780425276020
• Publish Date: 7 April 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425276020

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Any attempt I make to describe this book is going to make it sound childish so let me start by saying this is a very well-written book with a beautiful sense of place and strong characters all around, but especially strong female characters.   

Remember that as I tell you that this is a fairy tale for adults, of a sort.  Adams has created a place where love conquers all and borrows heavily from Arthurian mythology to build her world of magic.  I'm not quite sure why Berkley markets this as a cozy mystery; the first book of the series was certainly a murder mystery but while the last three have had murders that needed to be solved, they truly are secondary to the over-arching plot concerning the magical community.   

I didn't rate this book higher purely out of personal taste: it was just too sappy for me.  I'm not sentimental enough to be the target audience for this story, although I still enjoyed it.   This book very much reads as though it's the last of this series.  If so, it ended on a very strong loose-ends-tied-up note and I feel like the series stands complete as is.     

I stand corrected, there's apparently a 5th book.  It'll be interesting to see where she goes with this, after everything has come so neatly to a close.

[Stephanie]

This review was originally posted on Once Upon a Chapter



I wasn't in love with the last book in the Charmed Pie Shoppe series. I was hoping to really enjoy Lemon Pies and Little White Lies by Ellery Adams. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed! Kristan Higgins is my go to author for contemporary romance. She is who I pick up when I need to feel that there's good in the world. She makes me laugh and holds my attention and I always want MORE! Ellery Adams does that for me in the cozy genre. I'm grateful to still have an entire series of hers to catch up on.

In Lemon Pies and Little White Lies, the focus switches from romance to the story. There's still a thread of romance. I was impressed with the story arc. In Lemon Pies and Little White Lies it isn't just Ella Mae and her family and small town of Havenwood. It's global and the enemy is one of their own. And if Ella Mae won't work with her then she'll work against her. It was a lot of fun to watch all the different people from different parts of the county come together for a greater purpose.

The characters are largely the same. There are a few main characters added in and a ton of secondary characters. There was quite a bit going on with this story but none of the characters got lost in the crowd. We pretty much run the gamut of emotions too. Overall, I really enjoyed Little Pies and Little White Lies and I am looking forward to the next installment.