read the Joanne Fluke's christmas novella because I'm an addict and a completist, In this short novella, Hannah is still torn between her two suitors it's time Fluke puts an end to this triangle, solves who murdered Santa, captures and nets the murderer all underpages.
There are way too much recipes for such a short novella but they sound yummy especially the candy cane bars but yummy recipes do not make a plot, This relied too much on the telling and well known "tricks" of the series, like the early, early morning phone call from Dolores Hannah's mother and Moishe's her cat to the call.
The overweight inner monologue, the snooping into bathrooms, Nothing original, nothing new. This series has almost jumped the shark for me, I have the last published one "Carrot Cake murder" in my to read pile, We'll see if I keep with it,to Joanne Flukes Candy Cane Murder, a short novella edition for the holidays between booksandof the “Hannah Swensen” mystery series, Given this is onlypages, and just a teaser in between fulllength books, I adjusted my expectations, but it still fell a little short for me, Ill keep reading the series, but nothing really changes in the overall series with this book, so if you skip it, not a huge deal,
Story
Hannahs preparing for Christmas in Lake Eden by volunteering as an elf to help the local department store owner who is playing Santa Claus this season.
Unfortunately, hes a bit of a tightwad who rubs some of his employees and the villagers the wrong way, After the malls Christmas party, Hannah finds him face down on the corner of the street in his Santa suit, Its the tenth body shes found in about two years yikes, stay away from her!, but still gives her the frights, Is it his new younger wife Her friendly brother An angry employee Or someone else with a grudge Hannah dives into the investigation behind Mikes back and finds herself right in the middle of mayhem.
Of course she survives, but the fun along the way keeps readers in suspense in between her normal shenanigans,
Strengths
By keeping the count of characters smaller, we are treated to more indepth relationships among Hannahs sisters and boyfriends yes, she has a few.
The plot has subtle humor and it gives readers readers something to noodle over among the villagers weve come to know and love, And there are good recipes!
Suggestions
It was rushed and Hannah didnt even pretend to let the police track the killer, It felt too much like writing a long short story to keep fans entertained rather than release a fulllength complex story that would make them wait a few extra months.
It took me less thanminutes and while I was entertained, it was too basic,
Final Thoughts
If youre just looking to read more about Hannah and dont need a lot of substance in your mystery, then jump on in but if you want intrigue and complexity and a big ole candy cane to chew on, dont expect much.
Worth the read because Hannah is just a fun character, but go in with your eyes open, My rating is just for the Hannah Swensen story, which is an enjoyable short cosy Christmas tale featuring the regular characters, Although the ending is rather predictable, it has some surprising festive trimmings! I didn't read the two stories by other authors I did give them a try but they were not for me.
Candy Cane Murder was another enjoyable holiday read that I found hard to put down, Fluke delivers another delightful tale full of mentions of delicious desserts, a good mystery, and another holiday adventure for Hannah Swensen, I find myself really enjoying this series the more of them I read, and "Candy Cane Murder" was another wonderful addition to the series, "The Danger of Candy Canes" was another great read that had me laughing out loud in some parts
because Jaine gets herself into quite a few odd situations, I am going to definitely have to check out more books in this series, "Candy Canes of Christmas Past" took the unusual road by telling the story of a Christmas past when Lucy, Bill, and little Toby spent their first Christmas in Tinker's Cove.
I really enjoyed reading how Lucy met her neighbors and friends as well as how the true meaning of Christmas was felt just when Lucy and Bill were at their wit's end.
The Lucy Stone mysteries are becoming a favorite series of mine, and I am looking forward to reading more of them, Overall Candy Cane Murder was a great holiday read that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for an enjoyable holiday cozy to check out, Well this was bad, I couldn't even get past half of it, The amount of fat jokes/diet culture jokes is insane, I started keeping track in my notes from the first Chapter and do you wanna know how many there were! And that's just half way!
The first mystery was just meh but the recipes at the end of each chapter helped me get through it quicker.
I stopped reading the second after she tried to break into a house to look for clues, The only bonus was the cat unironically named Prozac, I love mystery "who dunnit" stories, I love good ones, I love cheesy ones, there's even a fine art to the really bad ones,
Joanne Fluke has created a series based upon the idea that a small Minnesota cookie baker solves crime in her spare time, Well, because who doesn't The other hook is that the books contain the recipes for whatever dessert are being discussed,
So I thought to myself, . I like cooking. I like murder mysteries. Two great things I wonder if they go great together
Sadly, much like some of the recipes in the book, . . it is a bit discombobulated, Also, the recipes read like a "howto" on product placement, "Use X brand. " "I use brand Z"
I dunno, perhaps my high hopes were just too much for the delivered experience, This book actually contains three Christmasthemed novellas and I love all three stories, I usually enjoy collections like this and I really like all three authors and enjoy their Christmasthemed stories, The book title takes its name from one of the stories, Candy Cane Murder by Joanne Fluke, Cookie baker Hannah Swensen takes time out from her Christmas preparations to solve a murder, The second story is The Dangers of Candy Canes by Laura Levine, The situations the main character, freelance writer Jaine Austen, finds herself in are always laughoutloud funny, The third story is Candy Canes of Christmas Past by Leslie Meier takes the reader back to when Lucy Stone first moves to Tinker's Cove, Maine, All three stories are light, fun reads to get you ready for Christmas,.Nothing like murder and the holidays Hasshort stories
, Hanna Swenson "CANDY CANE MURDER" by Joanne Fluke a murdered Wayne Bergstrom playing “Santa” at Lake Eden Inn founded dead with a trail of candy canes leading on a snowy bank, Hannah finds who killed Kris Kringle.
. .
. Jane Austen "THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES" by Laura Levine Garth Janken falls amp dies off his newly shingled roof while installing a “giant candy cane” on his roof.
Jane posing as a insurance agent finds neighbors with dirty secrets in their “stockings”, . .
. Lucy Stone "CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST" by Leslie Meier Lucy follows a smashed glass candy cane killing Mrs, Tilley investigates past residents of Maines hidden village of Tinker Cove Lucy's new home town to track find the killer, . .
Merry Christmas Three candy canethemed short stories in this book, each was pretty good, to varying degrees as good as most of the stories in my monthly Alfred Hitchcock magazine.
Slight, not memorable, but a fun read, A delicious, hilarious romo. Jaine and I are food sisters,
Merged review:
A cosy, mindless mystery with a fascinating glimpse into Christmas in Maine in the earlys, Very little in the terms of mystery but still a lovely story,
Merged review:
A short and sweet introduction to Hannah Swensen and her delicious cookies,
Though not the most ingenious mystery as I'd figured out the murderer even before the murder was committed, Usually I'm not all that excited by the short stories/novellas in the Hannah Swensen universe, but this one worked, It felt more like a real story rather, Where some of the short stories don't have real murders, this one did, And the killer made sense and it was someone I'd thought of as a possible suspect though the method was a bit of a surprise!, I really enjoyed this book, I love Hannah Swenson and her whole family, The stories are quick and the characters enjoyable!!,Christmas fluff.
The perfect book for this time of year, with stories from three cozy writers: Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier, The first time I read this book, I remember liking the stories enough to buy books from Levine's and Meier's cozy series, but sadly, they didn't have the same charm.
Maybe there's just something about Christmas,
Fluke's offering is as familiar as that snuggly old sweater, Mike, the cop, is always coming around to Hannah's apartment at night expecting to be fed Norman is pretty much at her beck and call and way too good for her, and her mother, sisters, and niece are as annoying as usual.
Once again, Fluke uses a dude's death as an excuse to abandon her business entirely, and try a bunch of recipes which she gives away for free, It's Christmas, people. Suspension of disbelief is key,
Levine's story is fun and mildly amusing, The tale of an underemployed freelance writer who finds herself writing jingles for plumbers and solving mysteries on the side to make ends meetwhen she's not eating everything in sight.
Meier's, which I remember loving when I first read it, has plot holes big enough for Santa to drive his Cadillac through, On the second read, this incredibly farfetched scenario almost completely ruined the story for me, along with some of the caricaturelike characters, like the elderly twins who dress alike and say everything in unison.
But the smalltown nostalgia is really sweet, Read this as my library book club have chosen crime as the genre this month, I don't normally read crime and found this on my library app, It was a bit cheesy, I suppose you can tell from the title and it was just ok, If I am going to read another crime book I think I will need to consult with my book club friends as to good crime authors, Second Reading: December:
When I first read this book in the fall of, it was just shortly before I discovered the Lucy Stone mysteries so I only read the Hannah Swensen mystery from this book.
Thanks to a friend's recent review of this entire book I realized there was a Lucy Stone mystery in this so I checked it out again and thoroughly enjoyed the Lucy Stone mystery bringing my review fromto.
I wish this hadn't been such a short Lucy Stone mystery, for I so enjoyed travelling back towhen Lucy and Bill and baby Toby first moved to Tinker's Cove and celebrated their first Christmas in their very unfinished farm house on Red Top Road!
I also thoroughly enjoyed the mystery which involved a younger but still quite elderly Miss Tilley, the town librarian, and the mystery surrounding her mother's death.
After a fall down the cellar stairs, her body was found near an old glass candy cane,
It was fun to see how Lucy meets her future neighbors and also her best friends Sue and Rachel, It was funny that all three of their husbands had read the same article about Maine in the Mother Earth News and decided to move there!
I'm now going back into these little collections of Christmas mystery novellas to make sure I read the Lucy Stone mysteries contained therein and also the Barbara Ross mysteries since I now enjoy her mysteries as well! I should not have just breezed through them specifically for the Hannah Swensen mysteries when I did read them :/ Also these books when read as a whole are indeed delightful because the way the authors use the theme that ties them all together is quite creative.
This is another in between novella in the Hannah Swensen mysteries, It comes between numbers nine and ten in the series,
This was a Christmas mystery and for such a short mystery it was very cleverly done!
I was thinking this morning that I have not been this excited about and loved a series this much since I read the "Babysitter's Club" books as a kid :.
Get It Now Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen, #9.5) Devised By Joanne Fluke Available Through Digital Edition
Joanne Fluke