Check out our latest feature title review from one of Library Bound's staff members - Elaine Restorick!

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder is book 24 in the popular Hannah Swensen mystery series. In this instalment, Hannah’s new husband, and the man she thought was her one true love until he left her to go back to the wife Hannah knew nothing about, has returned making threats. That is until he’s found murdered in her condo. Confused and hurt that her husband was not the man he seemed to be, Hannah must find the killer in case she’s the next victim.

Known for including recipes to go along with the mystery, Fluke does not disappoint with this title which contains 37 recipes. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly a positive. When the series started the recipes were secondary and the mystery the primary focus. With the last few books in the series most of the chapters are written as a way to introduce new recipes with very little character or plot development made along the way. The dialogue is stilted and the characters are increasingly one-dimensional. Adding in cliff hangers at the end of recent titles has ensured that long-time fans of the series will want to continue to follow Hannah’s adventures but poor writing and minimal attention to the actual mystery will not draw in new readers. Cozy mystery lovers looking for an active series featuring a few recipes mixed in with their murders will be better served by Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series or Krista Davis’ Domestic Diva series.