Red Velvet Cupcake Murder

A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes!

By: Joanne Fluke

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Joanne Fluke’s cozy mysteries grow in popularity with each new series entry.

One summer in Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen attends the grand opening of a newly refurbished hotel, where her famous red velvet cupcakes will be served in the new Red Velvet lounge. But when a party guest falls from the hotel roof, festivities come to a screeching halt - and Hannah becomes the surprising target of a murder investigation.

©2013 H.L. Swensen, Inc. (P)2013 Recorded Books

Love these books!

We have enjoyed watching Hannah Swenson mysteries on Hallmark and was excited to find the audiobooks. Love these books!

Good clean fun for Mom & Daughter

Where does Red Velvet Cupcake Murder rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Since it seems like there are fewer and fewer books being written that are fun to listen to with my family, I'd have to rate this one in the top 10%. There are no groundbreaking fictional landmarks but it is fun, the characters are engaging and I usually am wrong about who "done it"

What was one of the most memorable moments of Red Velvet Cupcake Murder?

Doctor Bev comes back to town…. Was hoping she'd never show her face in Lake Eden again!!

Which character – as performed by Suzanne Toren – was your favorite?

Hannah and Norman

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Red Velvet Cake - it's a killer….

Any additional comments?

I love the recipes in this book and since I usually buy them as audiobooks and do not have the written version, I was happy to find there are websites where you can find most if not all of the recipes!! I am happy because then I can copy them into Mac Gourmet easily!! Bwahahahaha

Uh oh, guess who's back in Lake Eden

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The Cookie Jar mysteries are more of an escape for me. If you call mindless entertainment time well spent then you might answer this question yes. Let's just say this is my alternative to reality tv.

Would you be willing to try another book from Joanne Fluke? Why or why not?

I will probably HAVE to read the next one given the announcement on the last page.

What didn’t you like about Suzanne Toren’s performance?

I didn't like the way she made Barbara Donnelly's character sound so young and stupid. Granted she had a brain injury but in past books her character was described as middle-aged and very competent and the performance didn't bring that out at all. That could partly be the writing as well.

Did Red Velvet Cupcake Murder inspire you to do anything?

I might be inspired to try a few of the recipes.

Any additional comments?

There were some mistakes in the story--some timing difficulties that I can't get into without a spoiler. The mystery was really easy to solve and I was often (in my mind) begging Hannah to have more of an open mind. Hannah is supposed to be smarter than that. BUT I do love her anyway and keep coming back to this series. Sometimes I just need a mental break and these books definitely provide that.

Highly anticipated and unexpected thrills

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If you are at all into food, and like the idea of fiction food novels, then you will be hooked by the Hannah Swenson Murder series. I recommend starting at the beginning, but anywhere will do. Even if you are not into murder mysteries, which I definitely was not, you will fall in love with the characters and stories crafted intricately into the series.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Red Velvet Cupcake Murder?

The whole scene of Dr. Bev's death remains in my mind, as it has been foreshadowed in several of the previous editions, and anyone who likes Hannah as a character probably wants to see Bev killed. Marriage for Hannah would probably be the only thing to top that... and I hope to see that come soon!

Which character – as performed by Suzanne Toren – was your favorite?

It's hard to pick out the voice of a specific character in my mind, even though I've already listened to the book at least three times, but I'd probably say Dr. Bev, again. She is such a creep and a slink, and that comes across well in the recording.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. I try to limit it to 15 or 30 minutes while I'm falling asleep, but I find myself restarting that recording once my iHome goes to sleep, or listening as I'm getting dressed, riding the bus, and going about every part of my day, whether I like it or not. I hope the next one will be out very soon!

Any additional comments?

Please be speedy with coming out with the next addition! I really want to listen to the next one now... the only thing that might stop me is the price. Too bad you can't get two for one credit. Just a busy but book-loving college student speaking...

The characters

I like the bond between the characters and everybody helping out now to help solve the mysteries. I’m glad the other characters are getting married. But it’s starting to get annoying That Hannah keep stringing, both men along

Hot Dishes & Cold Murder

Lake Eden, Minnesota is the most murderous small town since Cabot Cove, Maine. Mystery writer and detective Jessica Fletcher lived in Cabot Cove, solving crimes week after week in the series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). At least 2% of the population of Cabot Cove succumbed to blows to the head, gunshot wounds, stranglings and poisonings.

The creative killings spread to small town Minnesota. Lake Eden resident Hannah Swensen owns the 'The Cookie Jar', a popular coffee shop and bakery in the middle of 'downtown'. Hannah bakes and solves mysteries with the help of her business partner, two sisters, her widowed mother, and two beaus, Norman, the town dentist; and Sheriff Mike. That's a good thing: the town's homicide rate isn't as high as Cabot Cove's (yet!) but percentage-wise, it's 100 times higher than New York City's 2013 statistics.

Hannah's in her late 20's? Early 30's? She's a little behind on technology (would any of us explore the scene of an accident without a cell phone in hand?) but that's an author/editor issue: Joanne Fluke is two generations older than her fictional Hannah. Fluke could have set her mysteries all in the same general time, as Sue Grafton does with her Kinsey Millhone mysteries (A is for Alibi, 1982 - present), but since Fluke's books really are 'jumpable' (you can go from #1 to #15 to #7, etc. without a problem), readers in a couple of years won't even notice the problem.

Hannah Swensen mysteries aren't terribly difficult to solve, but complicated plots aren't the point here. Okay-to-good dialogue and really great recipes are. I've tried several from some of Joanne Fluke's earlier books (Cream Puff Murder, 2009; and Cherry Cheesecake Murder, 2006) and they were yummy. I'm planning on making the title confection from "Red Velvet Cupcake Murder" (2013) . . and the pancakes later in the book sound great.

One thing I won't be making is the Chicken Tetrazzini Hot Dish that appears in the book. Translation for those of you who weren't raised in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and 1,000,000,000 Mosquitos: a Hot Dish is a called a casserole most other places, and it almost always involves Cream-of-Mushroom soup, grated cheese and chicken, and is cooked at 350 degrees for an hour. Fluke includes an honest to goodness Hot Dish recipe, complete with the nod to Campbell's best selling soup.

The narration was done in almost over the top Minnesotan, and yes, the Frozen Chosen do have an accent. Remember the Coen Brother's 1996 movie "Fargo"? Frances McDormand, playing Marge Gunderson, got it right.

Recommendation: if you are new to the series, pick the book with the desert you'd most like to make.

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Decent but the annoying voices ruined it

What did you love best about Red Velvet Cupcake Murder?

Loved the recipes!

If you’ve listened to books by Joanne Fluke before, how does this one compare?

This one is par for the course, decent plot but the voices were whiney and EXTREMELY annoying.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Suzanne Toren?

Dina Pearlman

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

There was no way i could listen to this all the way through without breaks.

Could have read a recipe book

The story was a fair one, the only thing that could have made it better was leaving out the recipes. But all in all it was O.K. the story that is...

Simple cozy mystery

This is the first book I've listened to in this series. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers that having to listen to recipes in the middle of the action is distracting. Even if the recipe sounds good there's not much you can do about writing it down if you're driving down the road. I've listened to other books like this where you can go on to the author's website and get the recipes. From this book you can get the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe off her website but that's the only one that I've been able to discover and that wasn't the one I was interested in.

If you're in the mood for a simple mystery book and like listening to recipes read out every time a recipe is mentioned every other chapter or so then you might enjoy this book.

The narrator was easy to listen to.

Love this series

l love this series! it keeps my attention and I cannot wait for the next one!