Customer Reviews
Give Me Flavor or Hear me ROAR! - By: Linda G. Shelnutt, 13 May 2007 
True to her series' successful addictions, again Fluke provides readers with an anticipated invite into morning routines with Hannah's macho cat, Moishe, this time introducing the battle of the Crunchies.
This cat continues to do a reader capture, maybe a kidnap. His shenanigans could make a cat-a-phobic warm up to hair ballls. If possible, Moishe has kicked up the flavor of his mystique in this Fudge cupcake venue. Wonder if he's ever heard Emerile bam around his TV stove-top? Loved the various executions Moishe devised for flavorless Crunchies.
"To be or not to be; that is the question ..."
-- Shalll the choice be for Crunchies of grrreeeaat taste but bad rep?
-- Or shalll it be nada taste with "Good-for-you" tag-of-approval?
I have the uneducated taste to ask, is there a question?
The Vet has advised Hannah to cajole Moishe to gobble up Senior Cat Food, with a force-feed-tag included if necessary. Throughout the novel I pray that Hannah wises up & gives Moishe his "burger" HIS way. (This was a ruff-n-tumble allley cat prior to Hannah taking him in; eating who knew what out of the sewers of life.)
Of course Hannah's morning ministrations wouldn't be complete without her unwelcome mother clanging into a busy daughter's life, a mother reviled with relish, so much so that whenever the comely cat sniffs The Mother's presence, even over telephone wires, Moishe hisses with ears back, tail twitching warning.
Dolores doesn't appear to be a Joan Crawford parading the "Mommie Dearest" mystique. The M.D. (Mother Dolores or Mommy Dearest a la Swensen) here is merely a nosey, critical, demanding, domineering, bad taste influence in Hannah's life, a woman who always refers to Hannah, tellingly, as "dear," & never hits a good time to step into Hannah's constant rush.
Fluke develops characters with a generous pen, with just enough savory spice & redemptive reprieve. It seems that Fluke dearly wants to paint Dolores as a hometown, modern day, sour-milk-mamma, destructive to a daughter's spirit shining gleefully off-beat to her own drummer. Yet, as I continue reading the Hannah Swensen series, I catch welcome flashes of redemption flickering through devious Dolores's seemingly thin veneer of character.
Myself being a 59 year-old-reader who will forever grieve the loss of a Mom, who grieves the loss of ongoing opportunities to show deserved appreciation & admiration to that treasured woman, I welcome any flash or flicker of Hannah's developing an expanded generosity toward Dolores's foibles.
Fluke continues to sensitively paint Hannah defending her valid youthful needs for independence & space, appealing to women who identify too well with the conflict of an ageing, single mother needing validation & compassion for a rapidly arriving life passage, a passage which can be antithetical to a young daughter stretching & strengthening a new backbone. That tricky relationship-demand is a worthy, vital one to feature in fiction.
All of us have irritating personality rough spots, & any mother is in a potent position to harm the psyche of a child. My Mom & I were human enough to have mild personality-clashes & need-dichotomies, but she was a woman who had earned admiration & respect. She was a Margie, not a Dolores. Gotta remember that as I continue reading this series. (I now have an Amazon Short available on the USA site, COAL & COCA-COLA, which celebrates my Margie, who loved fudge cupcakes, & developed a secret sweet roll recipe which became famous in her Malt Shop bakery.)
Returning to a well plotted novel with plenty of perky maternal ambiance, in this Fudge Cupcake w/Secret Ingredient story, the Mother's hoarding a secret! This twin pair of secret-plot-yarns shored my curiosity to an entertaining level, kept it there, & tucked the threads into a denouement tapestry to weave for.
Enjoyed the morning routine twist in this book when Hannah was dreading Dolores's voice on the phone & heard Andrea instead. Liked the fact that Dolores distanced herself a bit from her daughters in this book. Maybe Dolores was stepping out of a warn-out character, turning the tide of interest toward her instead of away? Might this be a good sign for those daughter readers who've lost Mom & continue feeling that loss? I hope so.
Also enjoyed the focus on Mike in this mystery, with Norman kept off page somewhere through most of the plot (though I honestly like both these men, almost equallly). The draw of Mike's sex appeal was played well in this book, stimulating Hannah's bemoaned lack of sophistication into steaming up her cookie wagon windows, as she happily learned a little late in life about adolescent auto alignment. Fluke filled up the tank of readers' questions about to whom (when, why, & where) Hannah will give an exclusive commitment.
With coffee for blood, this cozy author percolates ongoing, unanswered questions. I won't say which ones were answered here & which ones were tabled for later treats. I'll just say I closed the book with hunger pangs satisfied, yet with an appetite for more in this series.
Linda G. Shelnutt
Comforting and homely - By: Snapdragon, 20 Aug 2006 
The Fudge Cupcake Murder is the fifth book in the Hannah Swenson series although you could read it without having read the others.
In this book Sheriff Grant has been murdered & the chief suspect is Bill, Hannah's brother in law & she takes it upon herself to clear his name & find the real culprit.
I enjoy a good murder mystery which is why I chose this series in the first place, but is not why I continue to read them. Fluke offers a fluffy sanitised version of murder (much like the old whodunnits) this is not the book for you if you ususallly read Tess Grittsen & Kathy Reichs!
I tend to read (and enjoy) these books if I'm not feeling well, or I'm not able to concentrate on complicated plots. The strong sense of family, the recipes & baking & the smalll town America feel mean that these books are comforting & homely.
The Fudge Cupcake Murder is even more 'family & baking' than 'murder'.
Not quite up to the standard of the rest of the series - By: , 07 Oct 2004 I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first 4 books in this series, & I was consequently eager to get my hands on this book.
Unfortunately there are a number of silly spelling mistakes or obviously wrong words used in places which make the book much harder to read & understand, also it appears that character names have been mixed up in various places which also detract from the otherwise excellent book.
The book doesn't seem to flow as well as the others or have the funny, everyday life descriptions. It quickly jumps from one place to the next & whilst this didn't stop me following the plot, it wasn't as much fun as I loved the character descriptions which used to fill in the blanks
Politics Get Deadly - By: Mark Baker, 17 Mar 2004 Hannah's life is very full. Not only is she juggling the demands of running The Cookie Jar, but her brother-in-law is running for sheriff in a very tight race & she's trying to organize the recipes for the Lake Eden cookbook. One night, as she's taking the trash out after her potluck cooking class (a convenient way to test alll the recipes to make sure they're right before the book goes to print), she finds the body of Sheriff Grant in the dumpster. Now Bill is suspended from work because he's a suspect, & Hannah must clear him by finding the killer before he drives the very pregnant Andrea crazy cleaning out their house. This also adds major complications to Hannah's relationship with Bill's partner Mike. Meanwhile, her mother is acting strangely, & she needs to get her cat to eat his senior cat food. And she’s searching for the missing ingredient in Mrs. Koester’s fudge cupcake recipe so it can make the book. Can Hannah juggle alll these competing demands?
Needless to say, there's never a dull moment in this book. There are a few times when the murder investigation seems to stalll briefly, but the other sub-plots take up the slack. Frankly, I hardly noticed because there is so much else happening. The mystery does progress well, with an ending I figured out a little before Hannah, but not by much. All the characters we've come to love are back, & it's definitely a wonderful visit with old friends. This book contains 10 delicious sounding recipes. (A word about the title recipe. The first edition contains an error. It should read 1 1/2 teaspoons baking POWDER not baking soda. This will be fixed in alll future editions.)
Is it possible to get the warm fuzzies from a murder mystery? If so, this is the series to do it. If you like your murder served cozy, look no further then this fun series.
