Books - The Hannah Swensen Mysteries

 

Now I am pretty sure that most cozy mystery readers know of Joanna Fluke and her cookie shop mysteries but just in case you have missed them, I thought I would post my first series that I picked up when I started getting into cozy mysteries. 

Take one amateur sleuth. Mix in some eccentric Minnesota locals. Add a generous dollop of crackling suspense, and you've got the recipe for this mystery series featuring Hannah Swensen, the red-haired, cookie-baking heroine whose gingersnaps are almost as tart as her comments and whose penchant for solving crime is definitely stirring things up.

While dodging her mother’s attempts to marry her off, Hannah runs The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden’s most popular bakery. But after Ron LaSalle, the beloved deliveryman from the Cozy Cow Dairy, is found murdered behind her bakery—with Hannah’s famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him—she’s determined not to let her cookies get a bad reputation, so she sets out to track down a killer. But if she doesn’t watch her back, Hannah’s sweet life may get burned to a crisp.

Now believe it or not we are now up to the 27th in the series and Hannah's decision to finally just pick Norman over Mike is getting pretty dragged out and for a small town of Lake Eden there sure are a lot of people dying there.  It seems that this is where you go when you want to get rid of someone in your life and get caught by the lady who sells cookies.  

The recipes, and I have made quite a few of them are very good and really worth trying and I still enjoy a fun read but I am getting to the point that I think Joanne Fluke should just wrap them up and say farewell to Lake Eden, after all Hannah is no longer that young and the whole two guys in her life is getting tiresome. 

Although I have read 26, I haven't picked up this one yet and perhaps the author might just wrap this up in here and I don't know about it yet. 

As Lake Eden’s Harvest Festival sends The Cookie Jar into pumpkin spice mania, Hannah splits her focus between scrumptious treats and sharing her tiny condo with new roommates: Norman Rhodes and his cat, Cuddles. It’s an awkward but necessary solution after Norman’s dream farmhouse burned down over the summer, torched by a criminal desperately trying to conceal a terrifying secret . . .

No one has a clue about the arsonist, the body found among the ruins, or the old class ring from a local high school partially melted by the flames. But when a celebration leads to the discovery of another murdered graduate, Hannah realizes someone might be seeking violent revenge against former classmates—and must whip up a last-minute plan to find out who . . .

Now, with the help of her family, it’s on Hannah becomes a makeshift event planner to arrange an all-class alumni party at the school gym and tempt a vicious killer out of hiding. But if the true culprit RSVPs, can Hannah blow their cover and still live to slice another chiffon pie?

So as you can tell, Lake Eden is certainly the place to bump off someone who just ticks you off (by the way the first sheriff and the mayor have been done in so far.)

Oh, and if you have enjoyed the Hallmark movies with the actress that looks nothing like the description of Hannah, you will find the books pretty different.