Christmas Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen #26)

Too much space wasted on recipes. I guess some people like them included, but I just skip over them. The conversations sound like the people live in 1950, not the 2000s! And they go on and on….about nothing but space fillers. And please, if Hannah gets woken up in the middle of the night again by her cat knocking something over…. I mean, how long has she had that cat? And by now she should at least consider that the noise is Moishe. Again, too much wasted space!! It adds nothing to the story. And lastly, no one believes this 3-way relationship. One or both of these guys would have moved on years ago!!!! I enjoy the lite mysteries, but the annoyance is beginning to outweigh any enjoyment. I have read almost all of the Hannah books. But this might be my last one. Sad.

Not at all up to the usual Hannah standard, which, let’s face it, isn’t all that high. I read this series as brain candy, and normally enjoy the story and recipes. The language in this book is even more stilted than normal, and the plot is short, disjointed, and unbelievable. Much of the narration consists of baking directions inserted into the storyline, and Hannah’s warring rational/irrational thoughts, mostly about her mother. The book reads as though it was dashed off in a weekend simply to gather more money for the author. A rip-off for $11. No value.

I used to really enjoy the books in this series, however, the last few have really gone downhill. It’s as though someone different is writing them, perhaps a child. The dialogue is very clipped, and the details are very mundane. We spend pages and pages reading about every little ingredient for every little thing they are going to put in their mouth. There are more chapters talking about the ingredients of their food than there are about the plot of the mystery. This could have been a 30 page short story.

The story was okay I guess but something is off. Was the book General and broad to appeal as a Christmas story? I felt like it belonged back in the beginning books of the series. Several plot lines were not in the right time frame. Also the blurb about the book mentioned Michelle\’s love life yet she isn\’t even in the story and only talked about for as very short minute. Is this a book written years ago? Or did someone else ghost write it? Not my favorite.

This book was a disappointment. The plot is thin. There have been 20+ books in this series. It makes no sense that this story fits between the storylines that occurred many many books ago. With tighter editing it might have made a good short story.

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