Wedding Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen Mystery 19), by Joanne Fluke

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The Hannah Swensen Mysteries, by Joanne Fluke, are what ignited my love of cozies and of reading in general. After discovering Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, I was hooked. I proceeded to read several books in the series, but after a while, I wanted to explore more books in the genre. So I paused the series. It has always been my intention to finish it and I'm happy to say I've resumed reading them.

This 19th installment sees Hannah preparing for her wedding. But that's not all. Hannah is also entering a dessert chef competition, hosted by the Food Channel. For this big event, she is traveling to New York City. When Hannah wins the Hometown Challenge (of course she does!), the remainder of the competition comes to Lake Eden, Minnesota, where she owns The Cookie Jar. Unfortunately, one of the judges is found stabbed to death. Hannah once again embarks on a mission to bring the killer to justice.

I always enjoy visiting with Hannah and her friends and family. It feels like coming home, which is comforting to me. I love their conversations, especially when talking about food. The descriptions sound delectable. While I'm not a baker myself, I can almost taste the goodies just from reading about them. The main setting in Lake Eden also feels cozy, although I appreciated that in this installment, Hannah ventured away from home for a little while.

The mystery had potential. The stakes were high enough and there were several viable suspects to consider. I did not figure out who the culprit was, but I believe that was due to the lack of time spent on the mystery.

That's the main issue I had with this book - the structure. The first half of the book is almost entirely about Hannah's upcoming wedding, the competition, and all the foodie talk. There are several chapters that end with recipes. This happens through the end of the book. Once the mystery did pick up, I was really excited to dive into it. Unfortunately, even when it did come up in the second half of the book, a good portion was still spent talking about Hannah's wedding, the competition, and the recipes. I'm probably in the minority when I say I don't mind that the recipes come at the end of the chapters and not at the end of the book. I think it's fun to read the recipes when they're talked about in the context of the story. The problem was that there were so many of them. And while I enjoyed all the wedding, competition, and foodie talk, it took a lot of time away from the mystery.

Since this is the series that got me hooked on cozies and I still love spending time with the characters, I will continue reading them. If you've read the series through book 18, you'll likely want to continue with Wedding Cake Murder, even though it's one of the weaker ones in the series structure-wise. If you've never read the series, however, I recommend starting with a stronger installment from earlier in the series. You can certainly read this one and not feel lost. Just know that there are stronger installments before this one. And as with most cozies, you'll appreciate the character development more if you start at the beginning.