Sandra Jackson-Opoku Books In Order

Publication Order of Savvy Summers Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Poetry Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is a published author known for the novel The River Where Blood is Born. Readers may also recognize her from Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him, which ended up being an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction.

Sandra also co-edited this anthology Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks. Her fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works have been widely published and produced in Midnight & Indigo, Adi Magazine, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Aunt Chloe, New Daughters of Africa, Another Chicago Magazine, Obsidian, storySouth, Lifeline Theatre, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and more.

Professional recognition extends to the Hearst Foundation James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell Arts, a Plentitudes Journal Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, a City of Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, an American Library Association Black Caucus Award, a City of Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, a Globe Soup Story Award, the Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award, the Joan Perry Barnes Fellow in Crime Writing at Storyknife Writers Retreat, and a nomination for a Pushcart Prize.

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes is the first book in the Savvy Summers series by Sandra Jackson-Opoku. This is a wonderful mystery that is placed on the south side of the city of Chicago. It features Savvy Summers, a quick witted main character that will stand out in readers’ minds. She runs a cafe that specializes in soul food.

Main character Savvy Summers opened Essie’s first soul food cafe and she never thought that the sweet potato pie that was the favorite of so many of her customers would end up becoming the focus of a murder investigation. Grandy Jaspers is a neighborhood womanizer who at 75 years old suddenly drops to her death at table two. Now Grandy has a lot more to worry about than just keeping up Essie’s reputation for having the best soul food in all of the Chicago city area.

The police say that Grandy passing away was an accident, but Savvy finds that in addition to having to manage the situation she also has to handle the fact that she and her cafe are getting a ton of bad press. She needs to clear her name and keep business going. Savvy and her assistant manager Penny Lopes decide to set out and find who it was that killed Grandy.

There is now an investor who is pressuring her to try and sell her name and her business. Customers are also staying away from her sweet potato pie in a big way. Now her police sergeant ex-husband is also back in the picture. Is Savvy able to clear the name of the cafe and be able to solve Grandy’s murder before everything falls apart?

Savvy has always said that her signature sweet potato pie was to die for, but at the end of the day, she didn’t mean it literally. Can she get to the bottom of what is happening or will she find out that it is just too late? Read this book to find out!

Savvy Summers and the Po’boy Perils is the second book in the Savvy Summers series by Sandra Jackson-Opoku. If you thought that the first mystery in this series was interesting, be sure to sink your teeth into yet another mystery story in this sequel that features tons of food and the return of main character Savvy Summers, who owns a soul food cafe located in Chicago.

Savvy finds out that she has her work cut out for her when a friend from the past hires her on to help cater a company lunch. It’s being held at an office building on the South Side of Chicago. Savvy steps out of her traditional soul food comfort zone and starts putting together a menu of classics in the Creole food world with her own spin on top of them. This means sunburst salad, miniature po’boys with different fillings, and bread pudding made out of Great Aunt Essie’s buttermilk biscuits.

When someone is discovered dead in the conference room of the company, it turns out that Savvy’s culinary creations are being looked at for all the wrong reasons. Instead of praise, people are wondering if this food is what could have triggered it.

The focus needs to be on their wonderful flavors and their inventive techniques. Now this cafe has once more become the focus of a murder investigation. Savvy now finds herself caught up in a web of gossip, miscommunication, and coworker relationships that are fraught with tension. She has no choice but to do what she can to clear her name.

Something’s for sure, and that is the fact that someone is hiding something. With the help of her assistant manager Penny Lopes, Savvy has set out in the world to get to the bottom of who is to blame. Familiar faces are turning up the heat on the investigation and the cafe is still in trouble. Savvy is going to have to do whatever she can to rescue her reputation before it ends up being too late. Check out this book and see whether Savvy is able to do anything and whether she can save the day!