Sugar Cookie Murder

This is the first Hannah Swensen book I have read and it was delightful! It's full of well-loved characters from a little small town in Minnesota, Lake Eden, and everyone is sufficiently gossipy. Also the main police officer in the book is a sexist jerk, which I personally appreciate. It Definitely takes place in the early 2000s, especially when someone goes on and on about their new caller ID on their landline. But it's not smothering; it's actually very amusing. I also loved the way that the recipes in the back of the book have a little “flavor” to them, about the character who supposedly “wrote” them. This book really made me feel like I was a part of this town, watching this mystery happen.

Fast facts:
Main character: Hannah Swensen
Murdered: Brandi Dubinski, the new fancy wife of Martin Dubinski, heavily implied to be a gold-digger. Also every is mean about her changing her name from Mary Kay
Police involvement: Sexist jerks!
Location: Christmas potluck in a town called Lake Eden in Minnesota
POV: Third person
Animals: None
Bonus: Recipes!!!

Star rating: 4.5 stars (basically perfect except for them being mean about Brandi's old name, which felt too close to deadnaming for me)

It took way too long to get to the mystery portion of the story and recipes took up like a third of the pages, leaving something to be desired as mysteries (even cozy-mysteries) go. Hannah and her sisters spent most of that remaining page real estate running around like chickens in a snow storm (sorry/not sorry...the setting is Minnesota and there is a blizzard in the story) and the resolution fell flat.

Wow, I was really irritated with Hannah in this book! Her presumption that she should be the one to decided who “needs to know” about the murder and acting like she is the most important person there. Her crush on Mike is the most annoying thing because he treats her like an afterthought most of the time, but it bothers me the most that she acts like it would be a crime for him to be dating another woman when she's dating both Mike and Norman! I didn't even care who killed the victim!

This is a very simple mystery as the murder almost seems secondary in this book. So much talk of food I was hungry all during reading it.

Only 167 pages of story, the rest was recipes. This is just a short story, nothing more.