Chocolate Chip Cookies, Strawberry Shortcake, and Blueberry Muffins

What do chocolate chip cookies, strawberry shortcake, and blueberry muffins have in common?
If you said "food," in this case you would be wrong. The answer is murder -- They're all in the titles of books by Joanne Fluke and they share a heroine - Hannah Swenson. Hannah is single and owns a bakery that provides Lake Eden, MN, with cookies.

In "Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder" Hannah discovers her local dairy delivery man murdered behind her bakery with her cookies all around him. She sets out to find his killer against the advice of local law enforcement and her family.

In "Strawberry Shortcake Murder" Hannah is the head judge for the annual dessert bake-off when another judge is murdered and she is off sleuthing again.

In "Blueberry Muffin Murder" Hannah discovers a murder victim in her bakery in the middle of the annual winter carnival and she wants to find out who committed the murder so she can return to her bakery instead of borrowing facilities to bake her cookies.

I picked up the first book in this series at my local library looking for some light summer reading and found myself wanting to learn more about Hannah. I know some of my friends are content to read books "out of order" but in a series such as this that also delves into the heroine's personal life, I like to read them in order. My friend, Mary Ann, told me about a wonderful web site last year that I have found invaluable - http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/. Although this site doesn't list every author, I find most of the ones I like are there. You can look up an author and find a list of all the books they've written as well as authors they recommend and/or like to read. If they have books that are series, the series will also be listed in order.

I love to try to solve murders while I'm reading mysteries but I had no luck with this series until the third book when I began to have an inkling about who might be the murderer. I love a challenge so I'll keep reading about Hannah and have added the next in the series, "Lemon Meringue Pie Murder" to my "to be read" stack.

Fluke's cast of characters in this series include:
Hannah Swenson - our heroine
Hannah's mother who is busy trying to marry Hannah off
Hannah's sister who is married to a law enforcement officer and spends her days worrying about her appearance and selling real estate
Hannah's precocious niece
And a cast of local townspeople that include a couple of possible love interests for Hannah.

Happy reading!

pazt