A moderately enjoyable listen; narrator is not to my taste; every character other than the protagonist spoke in the same strange voice, so the grandmother sounded the same to me as the 19 year old friend and several men in the story. A matter of taste; others may find the narrationto be enjoyable. ( )

I thought I’d found another fun, cozy mystery series to enjoy. What I ended up with was a hot mess of badly written Harlequin-style romance and a woke-ist, anti-conservative diatribe thinly veiled as a mystery.

After the initial murder, the heroine spends an inordinate amount of time whining about the local police, letting her ex-boyfriend take too much of her time, and lusting over the next boyfriend to whom she hands off the chores of getting her kitchen up to code. She occasionally works on getting her new catering business started.

Then, in the last few pages, she pulls together all the clues gathered by everyone else and .... no, she doesn’t catch the killer. Instead, she falls into a ridiculous trap laid by the killer and ends up saved by the new boyfriend and the local cop she’s been complaining about for most of the book.

The killer? Hint: here’s where the woke-ism really gets cooking. The killer is a lottery winner, frustrated by not being accepted among the “old money” of the community. Turns out she’s really a murderous “Christian” eaten up with pathetic jealousy. But our shining Kitchen Witch heroine who follows the old ways (sort of) is too kind and noble and pure to die. So, Sir Galahad rides in on his trusty steed and ... yeah, you get the picture.

The other book I read from this same author suffered from many of the same flaws. In spite of being two different series, the plots and heroines are interchangeable.

Sadly, my hope for a new cozy mystery series has been dashed. I will keep looking. ( )

One Poison Pie is the first in series story of Mia Malone. As the story progresses we discover that she had left her cheating fiancee in Boise and moved to her family’s hometown of Magic Springs to make a fresh start. Just the name makes it sound like a wonderful place before we even get to know anything about it. It is a classic small town located in the mountains of central Idaho. Description of the area makes me yearn for snow despite the two feet of it outside my window. Her grandmother has helped her to procure an old schoolhouse with a bit of a past. Her plan is to restore it and open a cooking school along with a catering kitchen. Everything is going mostly smoothly when her first client, a longtime friend of her Gran’s, ends up dead and Mia is the prime suspect.

The author has done a wonderful job of introducing the characters that will make up the core MC’s moving forward, including a plucky sidekick and a love interest. Gran, I do believe will be my favorite character. She is the perfect mix of spunk and decorum, plus she’s a little bit nosey. We all know granddaughters cannot be trusted to find the right guy. ::wink wink:: The secondary cast is fun and vibrant and they have a secret or two hanging around. In addition to the murder mystery there a couple of other side questions that need answering; Where does her cat keep disappearing to? Why is her Ex really in town? What lengths would the aggressive real estate developer actually go to to get what he wants? Why does the detective seem to be out to get her young sous chef?

It is a solid start for what I believe will be a fantastic series. I am really looking forward to learning more about the witches in the area and how “Kitchen” magic differs from traditional witchcraft. ( )

In One Poison Pie, Mia Mason works to clear her name of murder, all while navigating the opening of her new business and other personal challenges. This is a warm cozy mystery with a touch of the paranormal, great for a relaxing day on the beach or lounging by the fireplace.

In some ways, this book almost feels like a 'mystery-lite', in that the mystery comes to Mia; she doesn't seek it out herself. In this way, there is a less active focus on actually solving the mystery and doing detective work (determining suspect motives, deducing clues, etc). than other cozy mystery novels I've read. The mystery slots in alongside explorations of Mia's relationships (both platonic and romantic) and her determination to establish her new business; it isn't the main focus of the novel.

This isn't usually the kind of mystery novel I would seek out on my own, but I really enjoyed it. Living up to its genre, this book truly has a cozy feel. I especially liked how much Cahoon worked to flesh out the supporting cast, as it added to the intimacy of the novel. I only learned of the prequel to this book after I finished reading, as it wasn't mentioned in the Amazon listing. I don't think you necessarily need to have read it to understand and enjoy this story, though it probably help flesh out some of Mia's backstory as well as her magic.

The way that magic was handled was probably my least favourite part about the book. In some scenes, it was very important, whereas at other points in the story, it felt like an extra additional decoration that wouldn't have been missed had it been removed. Magic is so prominent in the title of the series, but plays a much less prominent role in the story itself. I think the novel would have benefitted from being more clear about how magic, and specifically Mia's kitchen witch magic, works. In general, I would have liked to have seen her magic play a larger role in the story. There are signs that future novels in this series will deal more with magic. But, at least for this first installation, something like "Mia's Morsel's" seems like a much more appropriate series title than "Kitchen Witch".

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This book was scatterbrained at times. There is a lot jampacked into one novel that, even for the first book in a new series, seemed like too much at once. The plot was kind of a mess, jumping all over the place, and even at the end, I felt I had more unanswered questions than I would have liked.

Before the novel begins, Mia Malone buys an old schoolhouse in her grandmother’s hometown of Magic Springs to give herself a fresh start after her breakup. She left behind her cheating ex-boyfriend, Isaac Adams, and the catering company she helped him build. She intends on turning the new property into a catering business once the building is up to code. Living with her until she can get back on her feet is Christina Adams, Isaac’s younger sister and the screwup of the Adams family. Mia is suspicious of Christina’s presence fearing she may have ulterior motives, but she gives her a position in her catering company anyway.

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