Review: Chocolate Cream Pie Murder

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley, Joanna Fluke, and Kensington Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.

I am not sure what happened with this book. I have read many others in this series and have had various degrees of enjoyment. I know what to expect so I am not comparing this to some highbrow literature and expecting the get the same experience. Sometimes you just want what you want and the ease of reading, the expectation of how it is going to go, the familiarity of the characters are all I wanted when I opened up this book. And I knew I would get at least a chocolate cream pie recipe out it!

But this stunk! I really didn’t enjoy it at all. I’m so sorry to say this but it was a big disappointment. It opens up with Hannah having to apologize to her community announcing that her marriage was over. Not just over but Norman, the man she married had fooled her and was already married to someone else, nullifying her marriage. Eventually Norman gets murdered and it has to be solved. But this book went nowhere. There really wasn’t a story. Halfway through there wasn’t even a murder to solve. It was mostly Hannah with her neighbours making recipes. It was beyond fluff. Everyone was sickly sweet to each other. How can everyone be in such a good mood and so nice to each other all of the time. They were constantly coming up with new recipes. It sort of went like Oh there’s pineapple and mint and Brussel sprouts in your fridge so I’m going to make a new kind of muffin for the store to sell and aren’t they so delicious! Everyone gets to “test” out the new creation and it is always amazing. Also these people would be 300 pounds if they ate the way they did in this book. They are always drinking coffee and eating plates full of cookies, muffins and cakes. They hardly eat a real meal with vegetables! It was so out of the realm of believable and the characters so cardboard I couldn’t stand it! As I said, I understand the premise of these books but somehow this time, it just didn’t work for me.

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