-- This title will ship on or after its release date: July 29, 2025 --

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.

BIO

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an accomplished novelist, journalist, and academic. Her published novels include The River Where Blood is Born, winner of American Library  Association Black Caucus Award for Best Fiction and Hot Johnny (and the Women Whom Loved  Him), an Essence Magazine bestseller in hardcover fiction. Her stories, poetry, articles, essays, and scripts are widely published and produced, with work appearing in Islands Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, The Literary Traveler, and elsewhere.

REVIEWS

"Novelist Jackson-Opoku makes her move to mystery with great flair and finesse, serving up a tasty combination of soul food comfort dishes that culinary mystery fans will crave, as well as a vividly evoked setting populated by an engaging community of characters about whom readers will come to care." -- Library Journal (starred review)

"A charming mystery filled with quirky characters whose Southern roots influence their daily lives." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Unforgettable... An entertaining, suspense-fueled crime drama."  -- Shelf Awareness

"Feisty, well-drawn Savvy is a hero for fans of strong Black women protagonists, and the food frame, the lovingly described Chicago setting, and the delicious-sounding recipes will appeal to those who enjoy food-centered cozies." -- Booklist

"Jackson-Opoku's debut cozy crime novel has charm, cadence, and culture." -- Raquel V. Reyes, Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series

[H]  Minotaur Books  /  July 29, 2025

1.0" H x 8.25" L x 5.38" W (1.0 lbs) 336 pages