Brownies and Broomsticks by Bailey Cates

From Goodreads: EASY BAKE COVEN Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees. While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells! When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer.

I wanted to like this more than I did. I did enjoy it, but I wasn't wowed. It doesn't stand out for me amongst the other magical food cozies out there. Mungo is cute, and the "book club" ladies are a fun diverse group, but some of the characters are also annoying, like Steve, who really needed to be put in his place. She asked him how many times to stop calling her Katie-Girl, but he arrogantly kept at it, yet she was still attracted to him? That really turned me off of his character.

The cover is adorable (of course they worked in a cat, who at least does make an appearance in the story, one of my pet peeves when they don't) and the mystery itself was fine.  I did give it a 4/5 in the end, the last third got more interesting with the spell working, and the writing is good, I just didn't really bond with any of the characters strongly.  I would probably read more in the series, but not necessarily seek them out.  It was a pretty easy read for a stressful couple of weeks so it could also have been my mood that kept me a little aloof from it. But I really didn't like Steve, someone needs to knock him down a peg. ;)