I know, I know.... I said that I was done with this series. I just can’t help myself. I’ve been with Hannah since her first adventures and I keep HOPING the storyline and the writing style will go back to the good ol’ days when this series was worth reading. I was thinking since this book was more of a prequel it would have a chance, but unfortunately I was wrong. But because I have so many good memories with Hannah I will probably read the next in the series. Like I said, I keep hoping!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, which I voluntarily chose to review.

The Hannah Swensen series of mysteries is one of my favorites series ever. I've always wonder how Hannah ended up opening her store The Cookie Jar and am happy to say with Christmas Cake Murder, we finally get all the answers.

I love the entire Swensen clan and loved going back to the beginning to see where it all started. We saw so many of my favorite characters in this flashback story of Hannah's life. As it takes place right after her father's death, it could have been a very emotional read, yet Joanne Fluke's voice brought so much humor along the way to the story. It was still very emotional to see Mrs. Swensen begin to step back into the land of the living, as she had been mired in grief for so very long. I loved seeing her daughters come together to help find ways to get her moving and out of the house and give her a purpose to live again. Of course not to be outdone by her daughters, she not only starts living again, but wants to help make each of her daughter's lives better along the way.

I loved seeing Mrs. Swensen step up to help make Lake Eden resident Essie's dreams come true by recreating the Christmas Ball. Of course she need each of her daughters help to make it a reality, as well as Michelle's best friend Lisa. I loved when Hannah found the story Essie had written; she shared it with her family in bits and pieces. I quickly realized there was way more to the story than it being just a work of fiction, but was happy to be surprised about some of the facts in the story. Once again we were given a wonderful mystery that pulled in Hannah and her family to solve.

Christmas Cake Murder was a wonderful addition to the Hannah Swensen mystery series. Readers were given the complete background to how Hannah was able to start her business. I loved getting so see a younger Hannah to see how much she has grown as a person over the course of the series. I highly recommend the entire series of books to fans of cozy mysteries and while I generally don't believe in reading books out of order, if you wanted to read Christmas Cake Murder first, it would be a great way to get a feel for some of the characters in the series.


Rating: 4 Stars (B+)

I really enjoyed the book. It was nice to see how Hannah started The Cookie Jar. The mystery was interesting and I enjoy following the story as Hannah narrated it. The biggest difference for me was not having Mike or Norman playing a pivotal role in the story. I am waiting with bated breath for the next Hannah book, and this provided a taste of the characters that I love in the meantime.

Get ready to grab the hot cocoa and a blanket as you read this book! If you're just joining the followers of Hannah Swensen, or a devoted reader, this book will delight you.

Step back in time and find out just how Hannah came to own the beloved Cookie Jar. As you're reading this cozy, Christmas filled story, you will also get a peek at another shorty mystery. But is this one real? A character inside this book is writing a story herself, but just how much of that one is fiction? You must read this book to answer that question.

Not only will you enjoy the characters and finding out how everything came to be, you always come away with scrumptious recipes. My favorite part is reading the notes in the recipes from the characters themselves! This gives the book such a nice little touch, it feels like you're literally sitting down swapping recipes with Hannah Swensen herself.

It's a perfect time of year to read this book and introduce yourself to this wonderful cast of characters!

Another excellent edition to a wonderful series! Full of twists and turns that leaves you wanting more and enjoying each moment until the end when the killer is caught.

Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke is about Hannah Swenson whose dad dies three weeks prior to the start of the story. Her mother, Dolores, is not grieving well. In the meantime, Hannah agrees to help recreate a Christmas Ball to honor a beloved woman, Essie Granger and encourages her mother to help. While reviewing Essie’s old notebooks, she stumbles on a story of a woman escaping danger on the streets of NY, but is surprised parts of the story turn real. I have enjoyed this author’s books for years. There are a lot of recipies and this is a very light read. There was a nice overview of the town and strong characters with a murder to solve. I enjoyed the Christmas festivities. Thank you to Net Galley for providing and ARC and allowing me to review this book.

I always enjoy books by Joanne Fluke and this is no exception. I really enjoyed the prequel to her Hanna Swensen series. I really loved the story including in manuscript form. Hoping for more prequel titles in the future. #freefall #Joannefluke

I was excited when I heard about this book. I thought it would be fun to read about Hannah's life before she opened the Cookie Jar. I had a hard time getting through this story. There was no mystery to be solved until the last 20-30 pages and then it was solved so easily, it was not believable. There was way too much description of what she cooked and baked and I just found myself slogging through this one. This would have made a great short story, but as a full length novel, there was just not enough meat to it.

I have been a long time Joanne Fluke/Hannah Swenson fan. From the story lines to awesome cookie recipes every book has been a blue ribbon winner. The Christmas Cake Murder is the best one yet because it is the prequel. Before she was married, before the dentist and the cop, before the cookie truck and the shop there was a girl who loved to cook and was finished with school, who moved back home and suffered the loss of her father. To get her Mom to reengage life after the death of her husband Hannah, her two sisters and a couple of civic minded ladies. This is a story within a story quite literally as Hannah reads each night from Essie's story book journals. This is a great story and just in time for the holiday season. I for one cannot wait to try my hand at the hazelnut truffles.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37833491-christmas-cake-murder" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Christmas Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen #23)" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515168864m/37833491.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37833491-christmas-cake-murder">Christmas Cake Murder</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18819.Joanne_Fluke">Joanne Fluke</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2277818255">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
It’s Christmas many years ago, and at the top of young Hannah Swensen’s wish list is to be the go to baker in Lake Eden, Minnesota. With her dream of opening The Cookie Jar taking shape, Hannah’s life matches the hectic Christmas hustle and bustle in Lake Eden especially when she agrees to help recreate a spectacular Christmas Ball from the past in honor of Essie Granger, an elderly local in hospice care. Instead of poring over decadent dessert recipes for the merry festivities, Hannah and her family become enthralled by Essie’s old notebooks that tell the tale of a young woman escaping danger in New York. Hannah is surprised by Essie’s hidden talent for penning crime fiction, she’s even more surprised when she finds out that the story is true. As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother’s house, it’ll be a true miracle if she can prevent another yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake.<br /><br />I've been a fan of the Hannah Swensen series since I first read book #1 back in 2013.Even though there are many culinary cozy mystery series on the market today, this series is still one of my favorites. Even though despite some disappointments in the last 2 or 3 books I won't go into a lot of detail so I don't spoil things for any newer readers who haven't gotten very far in the series of for those who haven't read the last 3 books. This is a prequel that takes place shortly after the death of Hannah's father, and before Hannah has opened her bakery The Cookie Jar.<br /><br />First I'm going to list what I like about this book first, then get to what I didn't like about the book. I like that the plot of is a bit different a story inside a story that contains a mystery where Hannah doesn't discover the body as she usually does. I like the fact that this story was completely pre-love triangle, while Hannah is busy deciding what to do with her life. I like that the book gives us some insight into the lives of Hannah, her sisters and her mother. Since I've invested so much time with these characters it was nice to read about what things were like for them before Hannah opened The Cookie Jar.<br /><br />Now it's time for the things that I didn't like about this book. I didn't like that the dialogue seemed to be clumsy, clunky, and overuses the names of the characters throughout the conversations. I also didn't like that the characters would unnecessarily be repeating conversations or situations to other characters. The last thing that I didn't like was that the author's writing style seemed to be different, and less polished than the books in the rest of the series.<br /><br />All in all this was a nice Christmas story and mystery with some new elements that I did enjoy. I do have to be honest and say the story should've gone through another round or two of editing to tighten things up, and bring it up to the standard of the first 22 books of this series. <br /><br />I got an ARC of this book from Netgalley and Kensington books for my honest review.
<br/><br/>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1344649-faythe-shattuck">View all my reviews</a>

Christmas Cake Murder is the latest in the Hannah Swenson series. It’s a quick, cozy read with a good plot and likeable characters. It goes back in time to when Hannah first opened The Cookie Jar. Christmas Cake Murder reads like a prequel to the entire series.

I received an advanced review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Synopsis from Publisher/NetGalley.com
It’s Christmas many years ago,and topping young Hannah Swensen’s wish list is becoming the go-to baker in Lake Eden, Minnesota. But as Hannah finds out, revisiting holiday memories can be murder . . .

With her dream of opening The Cookie Jar taking shape, Hannah’s life matches the hectic December hustle and bustle in Lake Eden—especially when she agrees to help recreate a spectacular Christmas Ball from the past in honor of Essie Granger, an elderly local in hospice care. But instead of poring over decadent dessert recipes for the merry festivities, she instantly becomes enthralled by Essie’s old notebooks and the tale of a woman escaping danger on the streets of New York. Hannah’s surprised by Essie’s secret talent for penning crime fiction. She’s even more surprised when the story turns real. As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother’s house, it’ll be a true miracle if she can prevent another Yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake . . .

I really enjoyed this little trip back in time to when Hannah Swenson made the decision to open her bakery. It was interesting to see what her life was like before she had the Cookie Jar, or her cat Moishe.

To bring Delores out of her depression over her husband's death, her friends asked her to put together a Christmas Ball for one of the community's most beloved members, Essie Granger. In going through Essie's things, Hannah found some notebooks that told an interesting but unfinished tale of a young woman on the run from a hit man. She had been pregnant and the story ended abruptly as the baby started to come. At the ball, when an attempt on Essie's life was made, Hannah knew they had to put the pieces of this puzzle together and find out who wanted to kill the sweetest woman in town...and why. Did it have anything to do with those notebooks?

The story was quite a bit different from the usual Hannah Swenson I'm used to reading. It did move a little slowly at first when there wasn't much action going on, but at least the story was interesting enough and filled to the brim with the most delicious-sounding food and desserts! I keep saying I'm going to try one of these recipes some day! I liked the side story that Essie wrote too. It ended up with a very sweet ending, just like this book had! Even though Christmasy thing told about in the book was the Christmas Ball, the book was still very heart-warming and perfect for the magical holiday season.

Hannah has come home from college after the death of her father and has no intentions to go back after a disastrous ending to her love affair with a professor. As Hannah tries to keep the house running for her youngest sister, she sees her mother declining more and more into depression. No projects the daughters think of can pull their mom back into the land of the living that is until two church ladies tell Hannah and her family about Essie. Essie is the elderly owner of the Albion Hotel who lives above it with no water or electricity. Essie is to proud to accept help even though all the townsfolk love Essie. Unfortunately Essie has fallen and broken her hip. Essie wants to revisit the Christmas Ball with its Christmas Cake parade one more time before dying. Hannah and her family are determined to make that happen for Essie. While gathering info for the Christmas Ball, Hannah and her mom run across several notebooks that Essie said are the beginnings of a novel she has written. Can Hannah make Essie's dreams come true of the Christmas Ball or will a story of fiction become all to real?

This book can be read out of sync from the rest of the series since it takes place before Hannah opened The Cookie Jar. I found this book delightful. Yes, it does read differently from the other books in to series as Hannah is not solving a murder mystery but she does have a mystery to solve. I liked seeing Hannah's mother on a more real, down to earth basis than her usual snooty self at times.

If you are looking for a quick Christmas themed read during a cold, dreary day then this is the book for you. I read it in one day. My only complaint is I didn't leave any for today. If I could I would be a regular customer at The Cookie Jar. Lots of yummy recipes included.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Kensington through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

Christmas Cake Murder: A Hannah Swensen Holiday Mystery with Recipes
By Joanne Fluke
Kensington
October 2018

Review by Cynthia Chow

Before Hannah Swensen baked mouthwatering treats out of Lake Eden’s premier bakery The Cookie Jar, before she dated both Norm and Pete, and before she finally married only to discover that her husband…Before all of this, Hannah was a graduate student who returned to her hometown following the death of her beloved father. Hannah and her two sisters were at a loss on how to pull their mother out of her understandable depression, but Grandma Knudson knew exactly how to nudge Delores out of bed and back into her normal domineering role. Essie Granger recently fell and broke her hip, and the always helpful Delores can be counted on to rally the forces and cheer up the woman as she recuperates in the hospital.

Essie and her husband lived in and ran the Albion Hotel until it fell into disrepair, so Delores asks Hannah to take her there to pick personal items for Essie during her hospital stay. Among the knickknacks Hannah discovers a stack of notebooks, where Essie seemed to have begun writing a compelling tale of a young woman fleeing for her life and escaping on a bus to Brooklyn. Delores, Hannah, and her sisters soon become immersed in the adventures of the woman forging a new life in a strange city even as they themselves find themselves forging new paths themselves. The investments made by their father have given them the means to achieving their goals, which for Hannah means abandoning heartbreak and college for her dream of opening a bakery and café. It is Delores who pushes Hannah into making the first step towards opening The Cookie Jar Bakery, with some of the first delicacies being recreations the Albion’s innaugral Christmas Ball Christmas Cake Parade. When not discovering the secret ingredients to perfecting the colorful festive pastries, Hannah will unravel the mystery behind Essie’s notebooks and whether they were truth or fiction.

This is a delightful palette cleanser for readers anxiously awaiting for the next installment of the Hannah Swensen mysteries. Both they and Hannah were left reeling with shock following the events of Raspberry Danish Murder, but this novel takes a breather by going back in time to the start of her life as a professional baker. New readers can jump right into this long-running series, while faithful fans will find themselves appeased with an abundance of delicious recipes, elaborate cooking descriptions, and the good-natured humor of the Swensen women. This is the perfect heart-warming novel for the holiday season, one that is light on danger but full of emotional moments for those dealing with loss through the support of love and friendship.

3.5

I think the author has upped the ante with this book. taking us back to when Hannah was just starting out as a cookie baker was pretty ingenious. This gave a fresh spin on a series that is twenty-three books in.

I have always enjoyed the Hannah Swensen cozy mystery series. I find them to be a fun and easy read. But I must admit that some of the stories were getting a little redundant. The last few really started to mix things up and make the story line more interesting. This one was a game changer.

My thanks to Kensington Books and Netgalley.

This book is essentially a prequel to the series and it is a book within a book since the story is peppered with the story from Essie's notebooks. There isn't much character development so if you haven't started the series, do not start here. It was a really quick read but it lacked the substance that is present in the rest of the series. The "murder" plotline is almost an afterthought and no one gets killed.

Unfortunately, I was not a fan of the latest Hannah Swensen mystery. I fell in love with the series when it first came out and I was so hoping that the flashback storyline would take the series back to the early books that I loved. Unfortunately, I could not get over the writing style. It was so unnecessarily and unnaturally descriptive about what Hannah and her family were eating and doing. I’ve never read anything like it and I’ve read a ton of cozies. The mystery was also very predictable and almost an afterthought to the main "Hannah returning home" storyline. All in all, It was nice to see how the cookie jar got started, but I feel like this was an opportunity wasted to reboot this series. If I wasn’t so invested in the series I would not have finished it.

I am finally caught up on the Hannah Swensen cozy mystery series by Joanne Fluke. I finished reading Christmas Cake Murder, the 23rd of 24 books, published in the last year. The next one is in ARC form and I'm hoping to get my hands on it soon as I'd rather not wait until early 2019 when it's formally published. Overall, I'd give it 4 stars as it had a lot of the traditional elements we normally love in these books, but the mystery was very different.

The book takes place before the first one in the series actually took place. It's the beginning tale of how Hannah got started at The Cookie Jar. The story is a reflection on all the major characters we've come to love and shows us what happened when Lars, Hannah's father, passed away. We also see how Delores reacted, what drove Andrea to become a real estate agent, and how Michelle was in high school. It was lots of fun and helped provide us with some wonderful and tender moments about this beautiful family.

It was also a bit repetitive for regular readers as we knew 25% of this content already. I can overlook that tho, as I like the setting and relationships. The other big piece of the book was a different sorta mystery where a local citizen, Essie, has an accident (truly, an accident) and is in the hospital. Hannah finds her journal and reads the book Essie had been writing. Is it about herself? Someone else in Lake Eden? Completely made up? We find out in the last chapter as the entire time we're meandering along, we're clueless, too. Once we find out, it's nice closure for this book but doesn't really connect to all the others in the series in terms of the mystery. Part of me was hoping to learn a fun fact about a new connection among the town's inhabitants. I sadly didn't.

That said, normal recipes look good. Everything else is spot-on. But it's just a re-cap book with a little bit of new content... I judge it on that merit rather than give it a poor rating because it didn't have a mystery. That was never what Fluke intended... and I'm glad I had this chance to read a bit more about Hannah's younger years. It's worth a read but not necessary to read in order. It could even be read first. Okay, off to find an ARC of the latest book. Wow... I completed another series (just about, don't deny me this fact please - LOL)!

A wonderful holiday cozy mystery as a prequel. Great backstory to the series. You’ll love the mystery & fabulous recipes! #NetGalley

I really wanted to like this book...it just wasn't possible.
It was okay but nothing that was keeping my attention...i really had to drag through it because i kept thinking it would get better. It didn't.
Some people like the recipes in the book but honestly i wasn't going to flip through a book reading the pages even if i wanted to make something in there...i think the recipes are the idea of the book and it's a great concept for some...but for me it was annoying to have to flip through them to finish the book.
Just not the kind of book for me.