Review: The Pie in the Scry by Ada Bell

Posted October 13, 2022 by Lola in Fantasy, Review / 4 Comments

The Pie in the Scry (Shady Grove Pyschic Mystery #5)
by Ada Bell

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
There’s a killer on the loose, and they look exactly like Aly.

When Aly gets a vision of herself murdering the town’s beloved yet crotchety baker, she’s baffled. Obviously, that never happened. But then police arrive at her house with a warrant. If she didn’t kill Tony, why does she have his baker’s hat?

Then Tony turns up alive, and things go from strange to supernatural. Where did that vision come from? Aly’s never seen the future before—only the past. At first she thinks the vision was a trick, sent as a distraction by the same person who killed her sister-in-law. But as she works to stop them, Aly fears that her vision of Tony might not have been a lie so much as a premonition.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

The Pie in the Scry is the fifth book in the Shady Grove Psychic Mystery series. I’ve been enjoying this series and when I was in the mood for a paranormal cozy mystery I knew it was time to return to this series.

In The Pie in the Scry main character Aly finds herself trapped in a time loop. While I am not a fan of time travel and time loop plot lines usually, I found that the author handled it well and I enjoyed the story. There’s only a small amount of repetition between the loops and for the most part every time loop offers something new. The pace stayed fast and it kept me reading eager to find out what was going on and whether Aly could find out how killed Tony and why she was stuck in the time loop.

I liked seeing how Aly dealt with the time loop and all the various ways she tried to find clues or ask for help. As well as the few time loops she wasted by doing some silly things or recovering from the previous loops. She goes through some harrowing things, but I appreciated her determination to keep going. There are a lot of time loops in this book and most are pretty short. I liked seeing all the various outcomes as well as seeing how Aly got closer to figuring things out with every loop. There is a steady sense of progression as she learns new things during the loops. I thought it was an interesting set up for a mystery. And with the police on her heels as they think she killed Tony she has to act fast and carefully and avoid the police as well.

I really enjoyed this book and even some of the twists at the end which put a lot of things from the previous books in a new perspective. But I really disliked the ending twist. The whole thing is confusing and changes everything and I am just not a fan especially with the way Aly doesn’t even know a lot of things about what happened. Maybe the next book will change my mind, but for now I just feel very unsatisfied with the ending and feel the next book will just make it worse. I can’t say much more as it’s a massive spoiler, but yeah I am not a fan of this type of twist and feel it ruins things.

To summarize: The Pie in the Scry is a fast paced paranormal cozy mystery where main character Aly is trapped in a time loop. The police are hot on her heels as they think she killed Tony. Aly has to figure out who really killed Tony, avoid the police and break out of the time loop. I thought the time loop type plot was handled very well with Aly figuring new things out almost every loop and a steady feel of progression. I liked seeing all the various outcomes of the loops, although there are some harrowing and sad ones as well. It was well written and kept me reading eager to see what Aly would discover and do in the next loop. Unfortunately the ending kinda ruined things for me and I am really not happy with the big twist at the end. It just makes me feel like too much changed and I am not sure if I can enjoy the next book, although I am willing to give it a try.