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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Cookies for Breakfast?


Re: “Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder” by Joanne Fluke

This book is the first in the series and introduces us to female-sleuth Hannah Swensen. She has become one of my favorites. I’ve read this book before but haven’t blogged about it. I didn’t overly enjoy the last book I read in the series, The Carrot Cake Murder. The story seemed forced and the characters have just gone stale. So I thought I’d start at the beginning to see why I liked this series so much.

Hannah is 29 and single, a fact that her mother hates. Hannah lives in the tourist town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. Lake Eden, the town, is on the shores of Eden Lake, the lake. That confuses many of Hannah’s customers. She owns The Cookie Jar which is a small bakery specializing in fresh baked cookies. Many people come in for breakfast. I don’t know about you, but cookies are not part of my breakfast menu.

Hannah has developed all her recipes by trial and error and mixes up all the batches in her bakery by hand. The descriptions of the bakery and the cookies are so good I can almost envision working there! It would be great to come home every day smelling like cookies. And the samples - so delicious.

But I’m reminded of a high school friend of mine who worked at an ice cream place one summer. She said initially it was great, but then she got so sick of ice cream after serving it all the time.

I’m not so sure that would happen to me!

3 comments:

Librarian said...

Sounds like something I'd enjoy reading as well.
Cookies are not part of my regular breakfast menue, either; I am more the muesli type, or fresh rolls with butter and cheese.

It's a shame that, from what you say, the series later loses its initial spark. How many books are there in the series?

LadyPI said...

According to Joanne Fluke's website, MurderSheBaked.com, she has written 12 Hannah mysteries. Carrot Cake Murder is the 10th book.

I find the same thing happening with other series: Leslie Meier's Lucy Stone series, Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy Schulz series and Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. Mainly that for me, the books start losing their initial spark and I start to get annoyed with the characters.

Or maybe it's just me, and I need a change more often than I think.

Librarian said...

Well, I do imagine it is not easy to keep something going on the same level for years, and maybe sometimes an author is actually quite fed up with a certain character or aspect of a series, but because they have a contract to fulfill, they have to keep writing even if they really feel the series should have ended one or two books ago.

I often find the same thing happening with movies; usually, the first one is (in my opinion) the best when it comes to a trilogy.