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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
November 2023 Review
Great Read
This was an enjoyable read. This is the first book of the Hannah Swensen series. This is a reread for me, but I am glad to get into the story again. I enjoy cozy mysteries like this one. In this book, Hannah Swensen is the owner of a cookie bakery called the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota. In the alley behind her store, she finds the body of the dairy deliveryman, and she agrees to help her brother-in-law who is trying to land the job of detective within the sheriff's office solving the case. I thought it was a bit slow in the beginning, but it still held my interest as there was a murder. I thought Hannah was a great MC. I love that she bakes, but I am kind of hungry with all the recipes in this book. I did not like her sister much. I felt like she was not as interesting as Hannah. Also, I think she needs to stop working as much as she does for her to take care of her kid. There is a bit of a romance. It was nice but could have been better. Also, the reveal of the shooter was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something more realistic, but I thought it was good enough. The series looks good. Hopefully, it gets better from here. Overall, a great read.
March 2019 Review
Actual Rating: 3.5
This was an interesting read. I really like cozy mysteries like this one. I thought it was a bit slow in the beginning, but it still held my interest as there was a murder. I thought Hannah was a great MC. I love that she bakes, but I am kind of hungry with all the recipes in this book. I did not like her sister much. I felt like she was not as interesting as Hannah. Also, I think she needs to stop working as much as she does in order for her to take care of her own kid. There is a bit of a romance. It was nice, but could have been better. Also, the reveal of the shooter was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something more realistic, but I thought it was good enough. The series looks good. Hopefully, it gets better from here. Overall, a great read.
Great Read
This was an enjoyable read. This is the first book of the Hannah Swensen series. This is a reread for me, but I am glad to get into the story again. I enjoy cozy mysteries like this one. In this book, Hannah Swensen is the owner of a cookie bakery called the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota. In the alley behind her store, she finds the body of the dairy deliveryman, and she agrees to help her brother-in-law who is trying to land the job of detective within the sheriff's office solving the case. I thought it was a bit slow in the beginning, but it still held my interest as there was a murder. I thought Hannah was a great MC. I love that she bakes, but I am kind of hungry with all the recipes in this book. I did not like her sister much. I felt like she was not as interesting as Hannah. Also, I think she needs to stop working as much as she does for her to take care of her kid. There is a bit of a romance. It was nice but could have been better. Also, the reveal of the shooter was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something more realistic, but I thought it was good enough. The series looks good. Hopefully, it gets better from here. Overall, a great read.
March 2019 Review
Actual Rating: 3.5
This was an interesting read. I really like cozy mysteries like this one. I thought it was a bit slow in the beginning, but it still held my interest as there was a murder. I thought Hannah was a great MC. I love that she bakes, but I am kind of hungry with all the recipes in this book. I did not like her sister much. I felt like she was not as interesting as Hannah. Also, I think she needs to stop working as much as she does in order for her to take care of her own kid. There is a bit of a romance. It was nice, but could have been better. Also, the reveal of the shooter was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something more realistic, but I thought it was good enough. The series looks good. Hopefully, it gets better from here. Overall, a great read.
This is a cutesy murder story, if you're into that genre. It is kind of a rip off of Aurora Teagarden, even down to the red hair, but they throw in a recipe in the book to shake it up, I guess.
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I read this book in book club because I wanted to see why it was so popular/successful that Fluke could write 30+ books in a single series.
My conclusion: this is a book written for boomers with all the tropes they love. Did not age well, I didn't like any of the characters except the cat, the little girl, and the single mom in an MLM. There were so many characters that had no personality just "midwestern" i barely remember any names.
Also the real villian gets away cause sorry why was the murderer this person?!?! When there is a horrible awful person in town who i wanted to be in jail by the end of the book but nope he's totally fine, scott free and living his best life.
Oh AND Hannah invented all these recipes? Of well known popular cookies....? And also she couldn't find a recipe for regency era cookies..... like did you research at all or just get confused cause everything said "biscuit?"
My conclusion: this is a book written for boomers with all the tropes they love. Did not age well, I didn't like any of the characters except the cat, the little girl, and the single mom in an MLM. There were so many characters that had no personality just "midwestern" i barely remember any names.
Also the real villian gets away cause sorry why was the murderer this person?!?! When there is a horrible awful person in town who i wanted to be in jail by the end of the book but nope he's totally fine, scott free and living his best life.
Oh AND Hannah invented all these recipes? Of well known popular cookies....? And also she couldn't find a recipe for regency era cookies..... like did you research at all or just get confused cause everything said "biscuit?"
I find this series hard to review. On the one hand, the mysteries are really well constructed, which is why I'm on the 6th book in the series, 3 weeks into starting the series. I really enjoy a well-thought out mystery plot, so that counts for a lot!
On the other hand, the characters are really old-fashioned (it's apparently extremely scandalous for a man to stay over at a woman's house or vice versa in the 2000s? seriously? it's not 1950) and a lot of things are kind of unbelievable (she and her ONE co-worker bake thousands of cookies every day in just a couple of hours? and she still has time to investigate murders every couple months? it's just not plausible).
So if you're OK with suspending reasonable belief of the world and how time works, or you just really highly value the mystery part of the book and don't care as much about the plausibility of the main character's schedule (like me), it's a good series.
On the other hand, the characters are really old-fashioned (it's apparently extremely scandalous for a man to stay over at a woman's house or vice versa in the 2000s? seriously? it's not 1950) and a lot of things are kind of unbelievable (she and her ONE co-worker bake thousands of cookies every day in just a couple of hours? and she still has time to investigate murders every couple months? it's just not plausible).
So if you're OK with suspending reasonable belief of the world and how time works, or you just really highly value the mystery part of the book and don't care as much about the plausibility of the main character's schedule (like me), it's a good series.
2 1/2. Audiobook.
Wow, Hannah is a great destroyer of evidence. This book was written in 2000 and it did not age well. Destroyed evidence of the dead dentist taking indecent pictures of women bc the women would be embarrassed?!
Removed the loan info from the crime scene as a favor?!
And the “R” word instead of intellectual disability.
Wow, Hannah is a great destroyer of evidence. This book was written in 2000 and it did not age well. Destroyed evidence of the dead dentist taking indecent pictures of women bc the women would be embarrassed?!
Removed the loan info from the crime scene as a favor?!
And the “R” word instead of intellectual disability.
This is a cute little mystery that will make your mouth water. Don't worry, the cookie recipes are included!
Decent mystery, but I'm learning that I like a little more heated romance in my mysteries. :/ I like the recipes in theory, but I skipped over them when reading, so I guess I didn't get much out of them. I read both the story and the short novella in it - I preferred the novella over the murder mystery, and it didn't involve death and was short enough to make it a more fun read to me, although it was even more PG than the book was.
I don't remember what I gave "Girl on a Train" but I want to rate it higher based off this book. Can someone tell me why the baker is moonlighting as a murder detective? She doesn't know the murder victim very well beyond the fact that he delivered milk to her. She didn't witness the murder. The police aren't showing themselves to be wholly incompetent. Is baking really that dull? I guess if your only friend and companion was your cat you might get into solving mysteries, too. Maybe I'll start solving mysteries! The mystery solving librarian! Or maybe I'll just stick to writing half-baked reviews on Goodreads.