Book Talk and Signing – Sandra Jackson-Opoku

Book Talk and Signing – Sandra Jackson-Opoku

On Wednesday, August 6th, we’ll be welcoming Chicago poet and journalist Sandra Jackson-Opoku in celebration of her debut cozy mystery novel Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes! Sandra will be joined in conversation with Sylvia Ewing.

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.

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.

Sylvia Ewing is a distinguished media professional, nonprofit leader, and community builder. Ewing has been a long-time trusted voice in Chicago’s media landscape, known for her work as a broadcaster, executive, and advocate for culture and community. Sylvia is an inductee into The HistoryMakers African American archives for media and an on air talent for PBS pledge drives. Author of the Comfort and Joy: Stories of Hope, Meditations for Happiness audio book, Sylvia is also a poet who has been published in Obsidian, the Chicago Reader, and Newcity magazine.