Books
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 Carrot Cake Murder Kensington Hardcover, February 26, 2008 ISBN: 0-7582-1020-5 Audio Book — Recorded Books Large Print — Thorndike Press and Doubleday Large Print Book Club   Candy Cane Murder Kensington Hardcover, Sept. 25, 2007 ISBN: 0-7582-2198-3 
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ABOUT THE BOOKS
CARROT CAKE MURDER
For Hannah fans who want more than one book a year, this is a very good year! Jo wrote the title Christmas novella in an anthology, CANDY CANE MURDER, to be released in hardcover in October 2007. Her novella appears alongside novellas by Laura Levine and Leslie Meier. Here’s a sneak peek: Bakery owner Hannah Swensen feels a little stuffed in her elf costume--but it's too late to count calories. Lake Eden's annual Christmas gala is upon her and eager children are waiting. Wayne Bergstrom, owner of Bergstrom's Department Store, happily ho-ho-hos his way through the festivities in his Santa suit. But when a trail of candy canes leads to his corpse in a snow bank, Hannah must find Kris Kringle's killer.
KEY LIME PIE MURDER It promises to be a
busy week for Hannah Swensen. Not only is she whipping up treats for the
chamber of commerce booth at the fair, she’s also judging the baking
contest, acting as a magician’s assistant for her business partner’s
husband, trying to coax Moishe, her previously rapacious feline, to end
his hunger strike, and performing her own private carnival act by juggling
the demands of her mother and sisters. With so much on her plate, it’s no wonder Hannah finds herself on the
midway, only moments before the fair closes for the night. As the lights
click off, she realizes that she’s not alone among the shuttered booths
and looming carnival attractions. After hearing a suspicious thump, she
goes snooping – only to discover Willa Sunquist, student teacher and
fellow bake contest judge, dead alongside an upended key lime pie. But who
would want to kill Willa and why? Before long, Hannah is sifting motives
and a list of suspects which include a high school student Willa flunked,
the hot-blooded brothers of a disqualified beauty contestant, a rodeo
cowboy, a baking competitor who failed to win her yearly blue ribbon, and
the college professor Willa was dating. As fair week draws to a close, Hannah cranks up the heat, hoping that
the killer will get rattled and make a mistake. If that happens she
intends to be there, even if it means getting on a carnival ride that
could very well be her last. INCLUDES SIXTEEN ORIGINAL DESSERT RECIPES !
SUGAR AND SPICE, Romantic Suspense Anthology Take two young teachers who’ve fallen in love, and add six unlucky kids who can’t go home from boarding school for the holidays. Mix it all up with a scoop of skullduggery, and it’s a recipe for disaster. It’ll take some sleuthing, but Hannah and her extended family must find out who and what is responsible for chilling the simmering romance between the two teachers. The clock is ticking and Hannah hopes she can solve the puzzle in time to deliver the very best Christmas present of all.
Published by Kensington Books in September 2006! In addition to the original novel, it also contains a novella about Hannah and 9 new recipes. Jo’s written a novella for the special hardcover edition of CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MURDER and it picks up right where the first book in the Hannah Swensen series ends. The story starts with a question – Who broke into The Cookie Jar on the coldest night of the year? Hannah sets a trap to find out. When she catches the teenage runaway who’s sleeping under the Christmas tree in the coffee shop, she’s faced with even more puzzles. Where did the teenager come from? Is her name really "Candy"? Who taught her how to make the most delicious confections Hannah and Lisa have ever tasted? Hannah and her friends must do some sleuthing to discover Candy’s real identity, learn why she ran away, and get her back home again in time for Christmas with her family.
CHERRY CHEESECAKE MURDER
There's no such thing as privacy in Lake Eden, but Hannah never thought
things would go this far. Everyone has been telling her what to do
ever since she got not one but two marriage proposals. The votes are
evenly divided between Detective Mike Kingston and town dentist Norman
Rhodes. Everything's on schedule until Dean demonstrates a suicide scene with a prop gun that turns out to be all too real. Hannah's on the case in a flash. There are plenty of suspects to go around, starting with the lead actress Lynne Larchmont--one of a slew of female visitors to Dean's trailer--whose husband Tom is financing the film. Then there's Tom Larchmont himself, forty years his wife's senior, and smitten enough to be motivated by jealousy. Ross Barton was constantly keeping Dean out of trouble...could he have had enough? Local Winnie Henderson publicly threatened to kill Dean to stop him for moving her brother's statue. And what about male star Burke Anson? He's argued with Dean about something mysterious the morning of the murder.
As filming continues, Hannah shifts through the clues, hoping against hope
that the person responsible for Dean's death is half-baked enough to have
made a mistake. When it happens, Hannah intends to be there--ready
to rewrite a killer's lethal script with the kind of quirky ending that
can only happen in Lake Eden. With The Cookie Jar, Hannah Swensen has a
mouthwatering monopoly on the bakery business of Lake Eden, Minnesota. But
when a rival store opens, tensions begin to bubble... At least Hannah has her business partner Lisa's wedding to look forward to. She's turned one of Lisa's favorite childhood treats into a spectacular Wedding Cookie Cake. And Lisa's aunt will be bringing her famous Peach Cobbler to the reception. But Hannah starts to steam when she finds out that Shawna Lee has been invited--and is bringing her own Peach Cobbler. Hannah doesn't like having the Georgia Peach in the mix, especially when both Shawna Lee and Hannah's sometime-boyfriend, Detective Mike Kingston, are no-shows to the wedding. Hannah has suspected that Mike is interested in more than Shawna Lee's baking abilities. So when she sees lights on at the Magnolia Blossom Bakery after the reception, she investigates--and finds Shawna Lee shot to death. Everyone in town knew The Cookie Jar was losing business to the Magnolia Bakery--a fact that puts Hannah at the top of the initial list of suspects. But with a little help from her friends, Hannah's determined to prove that she wasn't the only one who had an axe to grind with the Quinn sisters. Somebody wasn't fooled by the Georgia Peaches and their sweet-as-pie act--and now it's up to Hannah to track down whoever had the right ingredients to whip up a murder...
Contains 14 delicious recipes for you to try.
The holidays are the icing on the cake for bakery owner Hannah Swensen. Surrounded by her loved ones, she has all the ingredients for a perfect Christmas--until murder is added to the mix . . . When it comes to the holidays, Minnesotans rise to the occasion--and the little town of Lake Eden is baking up a storm with Hannah leading the way. The annual Christmas Buffet is the final test of the recipes Hannah has collected for the Lake Eden Holiday Buffet Cookbook. While Hannah is baking the day's goodies at The Cookie Jar, the evening's plans begin to jell. Start with the best Lake Eden culinary creations, add two of Hannah's "sometime" boyfriends, a pinch of her ready-to-pop pregnant sister, and a dash of her mother and a new significant other, an actual British lord, and what do you get? A recipe for disaster, but the juiciest ingredient is yet to come . . . The recently divorced Martin Dubinski arrives at the buffet with his new Vegas showgirl wife--all wrapped up in glitter and fur. His ex-wife, however, seems as cool as chilled eggnog. And when Hannah's mother's antique Christmas cake knife disappears, its discovery in the décolletage of the new--and now late--Mrs. Dubinski puts the festivities on ice. With everyone stranded at the community center by a blizzard, Hannah puts her investigative skills to the test, using the ingredients at hand: half the town of Lake Eden--and a killer. Now, as the snowdrifts get higher, it's up to Hannah to dig out all the clues--and make sure that this white Christmas doesn't bring any more deadly tidings . . .Contains over 50 delicious recipes for you to try.
FUDGE CUPCAKE MURDER* -- Bakery owner Hannah Swensen just can't keep her hands out of the batter when murder stirs things up in Lake Eden, Minnesota, leaving the sheriff dead, an innocent deputy accused, and a killer still on the loose... For bakery owner Hannah Swensen, life in Lake Eden, Minnesota, seems to be lacking a certain flavor. It's not that she doesn't enjoy teaching a weekly "Potluck Cooking Class" at the community outreach center. Or that she's not excited about her sister Andrea's bun in the oven -- watching the very pregnant Andrea try to sit on a stool at The Cookie Jar is worth it every time.Maybe it's this year's sheriff's election that's got her down. For years, Sheriff Grant's been the iron hand in town. But now, Hannah's brother-in-law Bill is giving the old blowhard the fight of his long, dubious career -- and Grant's not taking it in stride, especially once the local polls (and The Cookie Jar gossip) show Bill pulling ahead. But before anyone can get a taste of victory, things go sour. Just as Hannah's emptying the trash, she makes a very unappetizing discovery: Sheriff Grant's body in the dumpster behind the high school where she's teaching her cooking class. And if that weren't bad enough, the poor man still has fudge frosting on his shirt from the cupcake she gave him earlier. She'd been trying to find the secret ingredient left out of the recipe. Now she has a more important mystery to crack. The number one suspect is none other than Bill.
In fact, he's the only suspect. But Hannah's not swallowing it. Plenty of people
had reason to hate Sheriff Grant, starting with all the deputies whose cases he
stole during election years just so he could take the glory. Even his
long-suffering wife Nettie isn't blame-free. Rumor has it the Grants were doing
some serious feuding and had a skeleton rattling around in their closet. Soon,
Hannah's dishing up scandalous secrets, steaming hot betrayals, and enough
nastiness to keep the gossip mill at The Cookie Jar going through several pots
of decaf. And the closer Hannah gets to the truth, the closer she gets to
smoking out a murderer with a very nasty recipe for silencing people. Will
Hannah be able to stand the heat when someone wants her out of the kitchen...
for good?
LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER Hiro Kimura, the cover Here’s a little taste of the story to whet your appetite for Hannah Swensen’s next adventure: The residents of Lake Eden, Minnesota, are planning to paint the town red, white, and blue to celebrate the Fourth of July – but the fireworks are already going off at Hannah Swensen’s bake shop, The Cookie Jar… Hannah Swensen thought she’d finally discovered the recipe for a perfect life. But her sometime beau Norman Rhodes tosses a surprise ingredient into the mix when he phones to tell her he’s just bought a house from local drugstore clerk Rhonda Scharf – which he plans to tear down in order to build the dream home he and Hannah designed. It seems the plan has been cooking for quite some time, and Hannah’s shocked. Especially since her ring finger is still very much bare. The good news is that the soon-to-be-torn-down house is full of antiques – and Norman has given Hannah and her mother first dibs. They uncover some gorgeous old furniture, a patchwork quilt… and Rhonda Scharf’s dead body. Not exactly what they were looking for. A little more sleuthing turns up the half-eaten remains of a very special dinner for two – and one of The Cookie Jar’s famous lemon meringue pies. It’s obvious Rhonda was expecting someone for dinner – perhaps one of the men she was secretly dating. Now it’s up to Hannah to turn up the heat – and get busy tracking down clues. Starting in her very own kitchen… Contains 9 delicious recipes for you to try.
Bakery owner Hannah Swensen is back--and the cookies are crumbling--as acclaimed author Joanne Fluke serves readers another helping of murder, mayhem, and mouthwatering mystery... With charming characters, a quaint small-town setting, and exciting plot twists, BLUEBERRY MUFFIN MURDER is a tempting treat that will leave mystery readers hungry for more. From the book jacket: Preparations are underway for Lake Eden, Minnesota's annual Winter Carnival--and Hannah Swensen is set to bake up a storm at her popular shop, The Cookie Jar. Too bad the honor of creating the official Winter Carnival cake went to famous lifestyle maven Connie Mac--a half-baked idea, in Hannah's opinion. She suspects Connie Mac is a lot like the confections she whips up on her cable TV cooking show--sweet, light, and scrumptious-looking, but likely to leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Hannah's suspicions are confirmed when Connie Mac's limo rolls into town. Turns out America's "Cooking Sweetheart" is bossy, bad-tempered, and downright domineering. Things finally broil over when Hannah arrives at The Cookie Jar to find the Winter Carnival cake burnt to a crisp--and Connie Mac lying dead in her pantry, struck down while eating one of Hannah's famous blueberry muffins. Next thing Hannah knows, the police have declared The Cookie Jar's kitchen crime scene off-limits...she's a baker without an oven--and the Carnival is right around the corner. Hannah's only alternative is to cook up a plan to save her business--by finding the killer herself. But there are more suspects in this case then there are ingredients in Hannah's Multiple Choice Bar Cookies. There's Connie Mac's assistant, Janie, who's been MIA since the night of the murder--and a local photographer who got fed up with the home-making diva's incessant demands. Not to mention all of Connie Mac's disgruntled employees, including a driver she callously canned, and her unhappy attorney, Alan Carpenter. Hannah's starting to realize that she may have bitten off more than she can chew--and that solving this crime won't exactly be a piece of cake. Contains 8 delicious cookie recipes for you to try.
In her debut mystery, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, intrepid amateur sleuth and bakery owner Hannah Swensen proved that when it comes to crime, nothing is sweeter than a woman who knows how to really mix it up. Now, the flame-haired, tart-talking (and baking) heroine is back, judging a contest where the competition is really murder. From the Book Jacket: When the president of Hartland Flour chooses cozy Lake Eden, Minnesota, as the spot for their first annual Dessert Bake-Off, Hannah is thrilled to serve as the head judge. But when a fellow judge, Coach Boyd Watson, is found stone-cold dead, facedown in Hannah's celebrated strawberry shortcake, Lake Eden's sweet ride to fame turns very sour indeed. Between perfecting her Cheddar Cheese Apple Pie and
Chocolate Crunches, Hannah's snooping into the coach's private life and
not coming up short on suspects. And could Watson's
harsh criticism during the judging have given one of the contestants a
license to kill? The stakes are rising faster than dough, and Hannah
will have to be very careful, because somebody is cooking up a recipe for
murder...with Hannah landing on the "necessary ingredients"
list.
CHOCOLATE
CHIP COOKIE MURDER |
The Hannah Swenson Mysteries in order of publication: |
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Copyright © 2001-2008 Joanne Fluke
