I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of A Slice of Magic. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was a lot of fun! Even with underlying villainous agendas, the premise, characters, and situations we're simply delightful. What a light-hearted, fresh read! I could thoroughly relate to Susie's apprehension, self-doubt, (and sometimes aloofness/clumsiness). Her revelations about herself, her family, and her new town brought an energy to this fabrication that was so very enjoyable. I was able to predict where some of the plot was going, but it was still great fun to watch it unfold. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one (or several) in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and A.G. Mayes for the ARC!

A Slice of Magic by A. G. Mayes is a magical book set in a little magical town of Hocus Hills where main characters Susanna ends up after a very mysterious message that her estranged aunt leaves for her.
When she gets there she finds aunt gone again. She decides to stay and run aunt's pie show and to try and figure out what is going on. A cast of curious and more than quirky characters starts parading in and out of her shop while some very strange things begin to happen.

I must say I didn't connect with the story. It all seem so unrealistic and unbelievable to me. Susanna doesn't hear from her aunt for twenty years yet she rushes to help after she gets a call for help and after finding her aunt missing she decides to stay, Why? But even more unbelievable is how even though she doesn't bake she somehow manages to provide pies for the shop. Also, three of the aunt's friends don't say or do anything to help her realize what is going on or look for the aunt. They just show up to eat pie and be mysterious.
I also found it strange how so many people just show up around the shop and she lets them help with baking even though she know nothing about them,
I liked the general idea behind the story of mysterious aunt, family relations and old feuds. I liked the romance parts of the book. The story has a good flow and is easy to follow.

A cute fun read, was lovely and light and great to just pick up to make yourself feel better. A happy tale filled with cake, fun, friendship, family and romance.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

When Susanna Daniels receives an urgent request from her estranged Aunt Erma, she has no choice but to comply. Dropping everything in her comfortable, established life, Susanna follows her aunt’s instructions and finds herself in Hocus Hills running Aunt Erma's pie shop while she is away. Susanna knows nothing about baking, small towns, or even her aunt’s life since they’ve been unacquainted for the past 20 years. Suddenly, Susanna is learning how to run a successful pie shop and navigating small town life where everything seems to be everyone’s business. When Aunt Erma’s absence extends longer than expected and strange, suspicious things start happening around the pie shop, Susanna finds herself the center of town gossip and wrapped up in more than just learning to bake pies. Add in a pinch of magic, a dash of mystery, and a dollop of romance and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a cozy and delightful read.

This novel is fun and heartwarming. If you’re a fan of quaint, small towns, you’ll connect with Hocus Hills right away. The setting and the townspeople are depicted so vividly that the whole town really comes to life in the mind of the reader. There is mystery sprinkled throughout the entire novel – from the opening question of why Aunt Erma left Susanna’s life so suddenly to the end of the story when Aunt Erma's location is revealed along with the reason for her absence. The mystery pairs nicely with the story of Susanna venturing out of her familiar life and learning how to operate in this completely new environment of Hocus Hills. The novel comes full circle when, in her quest to learn the whereabouts of Aunt Erma, Susanna learns a thing or two about her own past as well.

Fans of Debbie Macomber, Joanne Fluke, or those who enjoy a charming read will certainly enjoy A Slice of Magic.

Heartfelt thanks to NetGalley, HarperImpulse, and the author A.G. Mayes for providing me with a free, electronic ARC of A Slice of Magic.

Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
First of all, I'd like to thank Netgalley and A.G.Mayes for giving me a free copy of this awesome book. I didn't have many expectations while I started out, since my history with ARCs hasn't been the greatest. But I loved this book.
There's an adorably naive handyman turned pie-baker heroine, Mr.Goody-two-shoes hero and their sweet love story. If you think he sounds boring, you're in for a surprise. He has a secret less-creepy-gossipgirl identity! (Umm, sorry, that was a spoiler).
There's also a charming little town, puppies and kitties, people turned into kitties, family reunions, a bunch of native weirdos with good magic and a Machiavellian witch who bakes cookies, hilarious contests and loads of pies. Did I mention yummy, mouth watering, goodness inducing MAGICAL PIES??
A very pleasant and satisfying read with a lot of potential for sequels. I can't wait for this series to continue!

After a mysterious request for help is left on her voicemail, Susanna packs up and heads to Hocus Hills to run her Aunt Erma’s pie shop. Erma has disappeared leaving only a voicemail and a note behind, leaving Susanna alone to run the business. Unfortunately, Susanna has never had a knack for baking and we follow her as she bumbles through pie after pie while getting to know the various members of the community. I wouldn’t describe this book as a sweet, small-town romance as it falls more into the cozy mystery category. As Susanna works to keep the pie shop open while semi-searching for answers to Erma’s disappearance among other mysteries. The description paints a scene of a quaint small town filled with quirky inhabitants and we certainly get that in the form of the Morning Pie Crew and the others.

I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters, particularly our protagonist Susanna. Her unfortunate lack of baking skills was amusing but that was all that stuck in my mind. We are told that she is particularly handy but we don’t truly get a chance to witness her talent, just told repeatedly. The alleged love interest, Henry, has the personality of flour. We only see him a handful of times around the town and at the bakery and we learn next to nothing about him until this moment at the end where he makes a sudden confession to Suzanne, and not the romantic sort of confession.

The saving grace for this book was the cute moments amongst the Morning Pie Crew. I wish there had been more scenes with the amusing nursing home residents as I think that was my favorite scene. If I had gone into this book expecting a cozy mystery rather than a sweet romance, I doubt I would be this disappointed. I may read the next one to fulfill one of my cozy mystery reading challenge requirements but I won’t be using it for the romance challenges in the future.

Would you drop everything and go to a small town after a voice mail message from an aunt you haven't seen in 20 years? Would you stay and try to run her pie shop based on a note she's left you? Would you call the police to file a missing persons report? That last is the one thing I would do but Susanna did the first two and not the second. Sure the small town of Hocus Hills is filled with quirky characters and this is a chance for Susanna to try something different but.....This is a light read and there are some bright spots. The magical pie shop wasn't quite as magical as I'd committed to hoping for but it might be just right for those who are so so on the genre. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I wanted to love this book. It has a charming small town, magical elements and pie. The main character seems very unbelievable to me. She drops everything to go to a town she has never been to and takes over her Aunt's pie business without any baking experience at all. There is a mystery as to where her Aunt is but the main character does little to try to find out anything about her.

Such a sweet charming cozy mystery book! I loved the town of Hocus Hills and the funny and interesting characters that lived there. I loved the small town feel and just all around wholesomeness of this book. A very nice light and refreshing read perfect for in between heavier books or thrillers! I need a sequel!

This book was cute and all, but really lacked any depth. The protagonist seemed way too naive and young to be 32 and there were too many characters to keep track of! Shame, it would be a nice cosy book if it just tweaked a few things.

Well I was up for some magical realism because I definitely needed the distraction. Too bad that the story itself was pretty lackluster. You can't promise me a magical pie shop and then not really show anything that magical. This book also seems to be trying for a cozy mystery theme which didn't work at all. The characters in this one were not very developed either. Also some of the reactions that the main character, Susanna had were not believable at all.

"A Slice of Magic" has handywoman extraordinaire Susanna Daniels traveling to help out her Aunt Erma at her pie shop. Susanna hasn't talked to her aunt in 20 years. She still wonders why her aunt disappeared from her life and so is eager to find out what caused the rift between her aunt and mother. However, when Susanna appears in town of Hocus Hills, her aunt is nowhere to be found and just leaves her a note telling her to keep the pie shop running until she returns. A cast of many (seriously there's a lot going on) appears and there seems to be something odd going on in Hocus Hills.

Susanna is the main character, but honestly, I didn't really get her as a reader. She's terrible at making pies and instead of her trying to call the police to help figure out where her aunt is, her aunts friends just go things will be fine and eat pie. I am not kidding. We hear that Susanna is good at fixing things, but besides a scene where she starts fixing things at the pie shop, we just get numerous references to how handy she is. And of course there's a love interest, but he was super bland. There is a huge reveal about the guy and I was once again baffled by it.

The other characters are paper thin in this. They all seem to have time to stop by the pie shop. There's a whole thing with a cookie store opening up that can ruin her aunt's pie shop and I ceased to care. And there was a fitness guru who went around shaming people for eating pie (I hated her) and a lot of other characters we barely spend time with.

The writing was so so. Mayes decides to open each chapter with a question and response form the town's agony aunt named Eloide and I am still baffled why that was even in there. There was a whole thing about Susanna figuring out who Eloide was, but you think the author would have put in pie recipes or something since the whole book was about them. It was a weird narrative choice and I started skipping over them after a while. The book jumps around too much too. We have Susanna trying to deal with the pie shop and then she will have some memories about her aunt and making pies with her, or playing with her, etc. We get tidbits here and there about Susanna's life back home, but people from her home or mentioned, and seldom heard from which once again strains common sense. If I was gone for a week, my friends would all know and be texting or calling to check in.

The flow was not good. Once Susanna gets to the pie shop and realizes her aunt isn't there the whole book just grinds along. Susanna doesn't know how to bake and why in the world she stayed and didn't call her mother was a question for the ages. There was also way too many things going on for the sake of plot and not common sense.

The town of Hocus Hills should have been charming, but I found half the characters annoying. We get very little backstory on people and Susanna gets a letter explaining everything and I just heavily sighed. The why behind everything was really dumb too. I just couldn't take it seriously. There was no world building at all in this first book which was a mistake.

The ending was a letdown. Susanna finds out something about her aunt and what led to the rift with her mother and there was zero reaction to it. I just didn't find it believable. This book was fairly short and most of the ARC was then filled with the next couple of chapters of the next book in the series. I think this book is dancing around 200 pages which would explain why the world building wasn't that good.

A charming, cute, light read - a touch of magic, a bit of baking, an odd little town. Nice for an escape read, or a "palate cleanser" between heavier subjects.

This was a mashup of fantasy, chick lit and mystery. If you are looking for a short, cozy read then this is the book for you.

Susanna hasn't seen her Aunt Erma since she was 9 years old over 20 years ago, but when Erma contacts her for help at the aunt's pie shop, Susie immediately takes time off her job and drives to her aunt. The aunt isn't there, and Susie is expected to bake pies even though she's not a baker and take care of the shop while meeting a whole host of town characters and figure out what exactly is happening. The title promises magic, and it's definitely at the heart of this sweet tale, but the cute premise fell a bit flat for me as I never felt really drawn into these relationships. Everything felt a bit underdeveloped, and I never understood why Susie would upend her life for an aunt who had effectively abandoned her with no information even after she was an adult.

When Susana Daniels receives a distressed message from her long-estranged Aunt Erma, whom she adores, to help with her pie shop in a small magical little town, Susana jumps in her car and goes. Unfortunately, Aunt Erma is nowhere to be found and Susie really does not know how to bake pies.

This cute story of secrets and mysteries is well told with lovely fun characters, a questionable "love" interest, a few townsfolk with ulterior motives and just the right amount of spice to make this a fun littler read. I recommend this book for quick beach / fireplace read.

A Slice of a Magic is, yes, a magical, sweet story that will leave you hungry for more….

Susanna hasn’t heard from her favorite aunt, Erma, in twenty years – not since her aunt suddenly disappeared from her life – but now she has received an urgent message begging Susanna to come and help Erma at her pie shop. Taking a leave from her job, out of curiosity about her aunt’s past as well as her current situation, Susanna heads out to the town of Hocus Hills only to discover that her aunt is no where to be found. She has left Susanna to run the pie shop and unravel the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance – again.

This is, at once, a wonderfully charming cozy mystery as well as the age old tale of a family in need of forgiveness and second chances. It is filled to the brim with quirky characters whom you will adore, conniving ones you will love to hate and a pooch that will steal your heart. There also is a fair amount of magical influence throughout Hocus Hills that makes the town sparkle and entice you to come back for more. While this is a cozy read, there is plenty of substance within the somewhat brief storyline to make it a satisfying read. I definitely will be back for another visit to Hocus Hills!

Thank you to #Netgalley, @HarperImpulse and @AG_Mayes for my copy of #ASLICEOFMAGIC

“A slice of magic” by A.G Mayes is a mysterious magical fiction with a dash of romance in it.

Susanna receives a voice mail from her Aunt Erma who had disappeared from her life 20 years ago. She was requesting her to help her at her pie shop for a while. Susanna always thought why aunt Erma had left and this was a perfect opportunity to ask her some questions. The next day, she packs her bag and drives to the town of Hocus Hills where Erma lived. When she gets there, she finds out that Aunt Erma is not there, leaving her to take care of her pie shop and dog Misty.

The plot was okay. There was little to no character development. The magic was introduced very late the book. It took a while for the story to make sense but maybe it was because it was a different story idea.

WOW I have to say I'm impressed, I finished this book within 2 hours and it is that GOOD. Let me keep it simplistic, unique. mind-blowing. exciting. honestly CANNOT WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL!!

unfortunately this one just did not work for me. i didn't like the characters, i didn't believe or care about the story, i could not handle the writing... too much telling and zero showing. i hate shitting on books when i can't even imagine writing one, kudos to all the authors out there, really, but we can't like every book we read and there's no such thing as a book that will work for everyone. so i'm sorry if that offends, it's just how i felt. i wanted to love it, look at that gorgeous cover! and the premise sounds awesome. but it just did not work for me at all.

Sort of a practical magic with cake premise. It's a typical cozy mystery. Fans of the genre will enjoy this one. It's a fast cute read.