Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (A Hannah Swensen Mystery)

Total garbage. I really don't understand how this author has sold so many books with this same character. It's the most implausible mystery novel I've ever read and that's saying something- because I usually stick with fantasy and science fiction. I'll just give you a few salient points as to why I have such a low opinion of a bestseller:
1. On the jacket, it describes the murder victim with "Hannah's famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, her life can't get any worse" and she's investigating the murder to protect her reputation. Nope- the issue of the scattered cookies comes up once and only once- the discovery of the body. It is never again mentioned, and her reputation is never questioned at any time. She investigates because (ludicrously) her brother in law, a Sherriff deputy ASKS for her to do so. Um....... is that legal?? Last I checked, police do not take kindly to outside interference.
2. Hannah's progression with clues reads like an eighth grader wrote it. So-and-so wears this lipstick, let's ask her what she knows. Oh, she said him-haw drove by last night, let's ask him what he knows. AND so on. Ad nauseum.
3. There is almost no character description other than vague generalities about their clothing ("she wore the blue dress from the window of Beau Monde") other than the main character about whom all I gleaned was that she has red curly hair, is tall, and wears a 9.5 narrow shoe. Not skin color, eye color, body, height, facial expressions NOTHING about anyone else. I assume they're all fit and thin (I'll get to that in a second). No one else merits the slightest description or character development. All of the text is devoted to getting to the next clue (see above). EXCEPT when the author fat-shames a minor informer character by giving her a lengthy description about how no one wants to dance with her because of her size and "a man needed steel toe boots to dance with her," also "at 300 pounds, Hannah and her high school friends had called her "heavy-duty"' Finally, when the author described the outfit, she goes to the trouble of saying Betty's vertical stripes weren't as slenderizing as she supposed and she looked like a circus tent. Bonus- Hannah mentally tells herself to go on a 10lb diet while looking at Betty. Seriously? No one else got any kind of description but "the fat girl", about whom she waxed poetic regarding her perceived flaws. I found this infuriatingly ironic considering the main character OWNS A COOKIE SHOP and everyone is eating cookies throughout the book. How about making Hannah a vegan who owns a salad shop/yoga studio before letting her fat-shame other characters? Give her a self-righteous leg to stand on. Nah, that's too plausible.
4. Was this supposed to be a "fun" read? I feel like I'm reading an eighth grader's attempt at writing a short story that turned into a novel because they couldn't figure out how to use cliffhangers, or plot twists, or reach a climax that ties the book together cohesively. Which is amazing, considering the incredibly linear progression. (See #2) If by "fun" they meant "amateurish, implausible, and immature" then yes, it's a barrel of monkeys.
It does have cookie recipes in it, so that's cool I guess, but then there's always Pinterest for that. Utter waste of $8.

I have a rule that once I start a book, I must finish it. I'm breaking my rule. I simply cannot finish. I am 52 pages in. The writing reminds me of when I'd review my son's middle school homework assignments with a word count requirement. I'm fairly certain the theasurus feature on this author's computer was used heavily. The descriptions are silly. There are descriptions of things that don't need descriptions ("lemons that had been washed until any germs courageous enough to light on their surface had fled in terror"). The main character, Hannah, is quite unlikeable. She tells one character that he's getting a stomach roll. Hannah's mother badgers her with suggestions of men to date - Hannah tells one (a police officer, who gave a speeding ticket to Hannah's mother) something along the lines of "one good thing came out of that ticket - she stopped trying to fix me up with you". A LEO, her brother-in-law, asks her, a common citizen, to assist in a murder investigation. She makes one character, Rhonda, sound tacky, fat, and very old, and goes on to think that Rhonda must be pushing fifty. In half a page she insulted Rhonda's clothing, makeup, hair, and intelligence (Hannah makes a suggestion that if Rhonda tells anyone of their discussion about the murder, the killer may go after her, Rhonda, too). Hannah dumpster dives for evidence and stores it in plastic bags found in the same dumpster. I'm pretty sure chain of custody and integrity of that evidence matters in homicide investigations. I am a Bosch and Reacher reader and was excited to find a new series that had a female character (surprisingly, there are around two dozen books with this character) but it appears my search will have to continue. I know that I will not be able to develop a fondness of such a snarky main character.

Alright, I usually don't like to write negative reviews, but it actually irritates me that somehow these books are popular enough to have warranted Joanne Fluke writing so many and, presumably, bringing home so much money in the process.

The writing is surprisingly bad. And I'm not a harsh critic. A lot of other books that people frequently trash (even Twilight), I've defended. But I was so bored I had to force myself to finish this one. And it's a murder mystery, of all things (though, to be fair, I knew who the killer was from the movie).

Then there's the subtly offensive things (like Hannah griping about how she can't find her favorite brand of notebook from childhood with an Indian chief's face on it because it's probably seen as politically incorrect now, the protracted fat-shaming of a perfectly nice character and the rather insensitive portrayal of another character's abuse by her husband. Hannah and her love interest, Mike -- who's not introduced until WAY too late in the book -- of course give the lip service, "What a creep. That makes me so mad," response. But Hannah is also rather harsh with the victim, both in her behavior and her internal monologue). I'm hardly the first person to call for political correctness in most cases, but let's just say I'm not surprised this book was written in the '90s by a woman who was already middle-aged at the time.

Speaking of Mike, the romance is God-awful. Seriously. There is absolutely NO chemistry/connection between Mike and Hannah. We're just told that he's handsome in very cliched ways (rugged, tall, sparkling blue eyes, etc.), and then there's magically this notion that they're love interests. Show, don't tell, you know? And we're also not privy to the reason Mike would be so smitten by Hannah, seeing as she's kind of unpleasant and is supposed to be completely average-looking as well. It's just really transparent wish-fulfillment, to make someone so hunky be enamored with someone like Hannah. Though, in her defense, he's boring as hell. Just hot and boring.

Also, what the bleep does the victim being found with a bag of Hannah's cookies have to do with anything? Why mention it at all, let alone as a supposedly tantalizing plot point on the back cover? This just seems like a weird, forced attempt to connect her profession to her amateur sleuthing -- or to trick potential readers into buying the book because it sounds more juicy than it actually is. The cookies don't end up implicating her as a suspect even for a moment, and it's never mentioned again after the discovery of the body. What?

I'm not at all surprised that Fluke apparently only wrote this book because she herself was a baker and, for whatever reason, someone decided she should write a novel that incorporated her recipes. I've read much better fan fiction. I only read this in the first place because I fell in love with the movie series on Hallmark. Since you always hear people bemoaning how the book was so much better than the movie, I figured that would be the case here. Not by a long shot. So glad I only bought two of the books (currently struggling to get through the second, but keep being pulled away by the much better Fixer Upper Mystery series) instead of getting the whole series at once so I could binge-read.

I give two stars instead of one because there at least were a few humorous or generally entertaining moments, and, to be fair, I might have been surprised by the killer's identity if I hadn't already known it from the movie. And, even though I doubt I will ever use them, it does come with recipes. For that reason, rather than getting rid of it, I've relegated this book to my cook-book collection in the kitchen. But not a hallowed spot on the bookshelf, where I keep works of fiction I actually want to sit down and spend an extended amount of time with.

I read this book because I fell in love with title and then I saw the great reviews of it on Goodreads (by the way on a very side note goodreads.com is a excellent place to find books to read, and is usually really good at making recommendations). You know sometimes too much information on a book can really backfire, and coming from someone like me who loves prep on most things, this is saying a lot. After seeing some of those great reviews about it, I kind of felt like a failure and really tried to make myself like this book, putting way more effort than usual into it and way more than I should have.

It took me until chapter 15 to have any kind of buy in and in a 26 chapter book that is never a good sign. I just couldn't find anything witty, clever, charming or endearing about it. I felt no connection to the story nor did it get any more appealing as I finished it. And to top it all off the ending was completely anticlimactic. One part in the book really upset me and I still bothers me even now. Andrea's (Hannah's sister and partner in crime) manipulation of her husband Bill and crying to get out of trouble was horrible. Okay I know that this is a work of fiction, but still.

The recipes included were kind of cute, but I'm not much into baking so that didn't do much for me either. Some of the people who shared my aversion to this book thought the storyline too implausible, but as a fan of Sci fi, fantasy and action movies that wasn't really a problem for me. I have learned I can buy into anything as long as it is well done. That just wasn't the case here. I almost never give only one star, but here it is. I just didn't like it. In spite of my usually optimistic views of books and the belief in the redeeming qualities of trying another one in the series, there will be no more Hannah Swensen books for me!

For the full review and others visit whymsylikesbooks dot blogspot dot com

Because I listened to this book via Audible, I found the recipes to be distracting. I found the plot to be totally ridiculous. Her brother-in-law is the cop who is assigned to the murder case, but he allows her (the owner of a cookie-baking shop) to do the sleuthing. Whaaaaat? I won't be buying more of this author's books.

The Joanne Fluke mysteries are fun books. They're well written, easy to read, keep your interest and are great bedtime reading because there isn't anything that will keep you up all night or disturb your sleep. I've read three of the books already and have two more on my shelf for later. The recipes are pretty good, too!

Worst book I’ve ever read in my life. The level of writing is elementary, book has zero character development and the dialogue is just so stupid. I think most young adult books are written better than this. Plot seriously makes no sense. Why the hell would a baker do all the investigating in a crime? The most annoying thing about this book is that the characters use the name of the person they’re speaking to in almost every sentence!!!! Who talks like that?!?! I hate this book so much I will mail it to whoever wants it for free. Just pay me shipping. But trust me on this. You don’t want to waste your time.

Meh. It's mechanically well written, but so tediously simplistic. Some of the choices Hannah makes also had me wondering if she's slightly deranged. And really the entire premise, that she would play unofficial detective because it will help her brother-in-law get a promotion, is ludicrous and surpassed in ridiculousness only by the idea that he would be so eager for her to do it.

I did enjoy the recipes, or I would have, I should say, but the Kindle edition made them difficult to read by placing a letter per line, centered. A letter, not a word. If I want to try the recipes I'll have to get out my secret decoder ring to do it.

This book is one of those very rare instances, in my experience, where I actually prefer the movie. And though not perfect, the movies make the story more coherent and plausible, all the characters infinitely more likable, and Alison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison are delightful, to boot.

The only reason I'm finishing this book is because I have nothing else to read yet. I can't get past the fact that the detective in town is so stupid that he actually asks his sister in law to help solve the murder. I'm all for cozy's and amateur sleuths but this is ridiculous.

I was in the mood for some light reading & thought that this book might be entertaining. It's not. It's poorly written. I found Hannah Swensen to be very boring & since she's the main character, that's a problem. The characters were underdeveloped & predictable & it didn't even have the saving grace of being funny. I won't waste anymore time on the rest of the Hannah Swensen series. I will say some of the cookie recipes look good & I may try them but I would have bought a cookbook if that's what I wanted.