Hannah Swensen Mysteries

College educated Hannah Swensen owns and operates Hannah's Cookie Jar, a bakery and café, in the small town of Eden Lake, Minnesota, where she grew up and where most everyone knows everyone else. Baking for the community and taking care of her cat are Hannah's primary concerns in life, while finding a husband by making herself more feminine being at the bottom of the list, which irks her widowed mother, Delores Swensen, and all the women in town who know Hannah is a catch if she would only show that side of herself. As such, Hannah does not appreciate Delores ambushing her with Dr. Norman Rhodes, the handsome bachelor dentist just arrived in town, despite admitting to herself that he is charming. Eden Lake is turned upside down when Hannah's childhood friend and the bakery's longtime dairy supplier delivery guy, Ron LaSalle, is found murdered outside the bakery, Hannah who finds his dead body behind the wheel of his delivery truck. Because the local police department is ill-equipped to handle a murder investigation, they call in Detective Mike Kingston of the Minneapolis PD to lead the investigation. As she finds Mike arrogant and because she doesn't trust him to know the ins and outs of Eden Lake in solving the murder of her friend, Hannah does some investigating of her own, while Mike does not appreciate an amateur sleuth interfering in the investigation. Hannah and Mike may have to come to a compromise and work together to find out who killed Ron.

It's one week before Christmas in the small, generally quiet town of Eden Lake, Minnesota. After not pursuing romance for most of her adult life, Hannah Swensen, owner/operator of Hannah's Cookie Jar, a bakery/café, is being wooed by two men, who know about the other in Hannah's life. Hannah likes both a lot, but has not even kissed either. While her mother, Delores Swensen, is pushing her into the arms of dentist Norman Rhodes as the person who will provide her with a stable, comfortable life, her sister, Andrea Todd, is pushing her into the arms of Andrea's deputy sheriff husband Bill Todd's colleague, police detective Mike Kingston, as the more exciting choice. What seems to be becoming a more chronic issue in Hannah's life is that she is the person who finds someone murdered in Eden Lake, this time the victim being one of her customers, Larry Jaeger, co-owner of the Crazy Elf Christmas tree lot with his fiancée, Courtney Miller, the two who got engaged after knowing each other for only six weeks. Larry's murder is only the second such in recent memory in the town, and the second such body Hannah has discovered. Hannah can't help but get involved in the investigation, either by accident or usually more on purpose, which irks both Norman and Mike as putting her life in danger. Mike is additionally bothered that her amateur sleuthing is interfering with his official investigation. At the top of the suspect list is Delores' friend, Nancy Schmidt who is better known in town as radio talk show host on issues of the lovelorn, Dr. Love. Nancy is not Larry's ex-wife as she had implied to Delores, but rather his wife - at least up until his murder - he who she claims not to have seen in ten years as he bilked her out of her money and disappeared without a trace until now. The further Hannah and Mike investigate, the further they find that Larry was generally not a nice person who had many enemies who had motive to want to see him dead. What Hannah may or may not be aware is that she is getting closer to the truth which truly does put her life in danger as the murderer would probably not hesitate to murder a second time if she gets too close to discovering the truth.

After evaluating her feelings about the two men vying for her affections, Hannah Swensen, the owner/operator of Hannah's Cookie Jar bakery and coffee shop in Eden Lake, Minnesota, believes she is more attracted to Police Detective Mike Kingston, the more exciting one, than she is to dentist, Dr. Norman Rhodes, the safer one. These feelings are despite Norman being more prepared to make a commitment, while widowed Mike is still not ready, having not even talked to her about his marriage to his recently deceased wife, Lydia. Before telling either Mike or Norman of her feelings, Hannah believes she may have made the wrong choice when Melanie Quinn, an old college friend of Mike and Lydia's, moves to Eden Lake on Mike's suggestion. Not only does Hannah think Mike did so as they are mutually attracted to each other, but Melanie decides to open a bakery, the Magnolia Blossom, across the street to be in direct competition to the Cookie Jar. Despite Hannah getting unbiased opinions that the Cookie Jar's food is better, Hannah admits that the Magnolia Blossom is taking away much of her business, as Melanie's backer and financial manager, her sister Vanessa Quinn, is doing some heavy promotion to drum up business. Hannah's relationship with Mike takes an even more unusual twist when passing by the Magnolia Blossom one evening and noticing the lights still on when Melanie should have been gone on a delivery, Hannah walks in to find Melanie shot dead in the kitchen, this the third of three murders Hannah has stumbled upon in Eden Lake. Although he knows that Hannah had nothing to do with the murder, Mike has to stay clear of her to remain impartial in the investigation, circumstantial evidence indeed pointing to Hannah as the murderer, she a person with opportunity and motive. As usual, inquisitive Hannah uses her investigative skills to assist in finding out who really did kill Melanie. As she can't tag onto or feed into Mike's investigation as she usually does, Hannah instead turns to Norman, whose support in the matter may sway her feelings in his favor.

The town sheriff is murdered during election time and Hannah the owner of the town bakery teams up with the smitten town dentist to clear her brother-in-law of the crime. All the while the lead detective who is also smitten with Hannah is trying to keep her out of trouble.

Another homicide has taken place in the small town of Eden Lake, Minnesota, but unlike the recent homicides, the dead bodies in those cases which were all discovered by Hannah Swensen, the owner/operator of the Cookie Jar Bakery and Café, this dead body is discovered by dentist Norman Rhodes outside Eden Lake High School. The victim is Len Bishop, the coach of the school's basketball team, on which Norman volunteers as an assistant coach. He discovers the body shortly after a live airing of the semi-finals of the Eden Lake Bake-Off, conceived, sponsored and hosted by Hannah and filmed at the school by another sponsor, the local television station, WNKW. Len was a last minute replacement as the third judge for the semi-finals in the baking contest. Detective Mike Kingston with the Sheriff's Department leads the investigation as he has with all the other recent homicides. Mike, who Hannah has chosen to date exclusively over Norman, keeps Hannah in the loop as much as he can, knowing now that she is both an asset, and will investigate on her own anyway if he doesn't include her. The leading suspects include: Michele Bishop, Len's wife, as there are known problems in the marriage as Michele suspected him of infidelity; Josh Reynolds, a second string player on the team who was seen destroying property at the school just prior to the murder and who never had the financial means to move to the next level such as the team's star player, Carl Kimball, the son of WNKW station manager Mason Kimball; and any of the three finalists of the baking contest, as some mishap has befallen most of the judges, including Hannah. As the investigation progresses, a few incidents occur that threaten Mike and Hannah's relationship, with Norman, who has outwardly moved on by dating other women, quietly or not so quietly waiting in the wings.

Baker Hannah Swenson teams up with her fiancé Detective Mike to solve a string of crimes including theft, vandalism, and murder. Hannah's mom debuts her new novel, and Hannah searches for the recipe for the perfect cream puffs to serve at the book-release gala.

Hannah is baking the birthday cake for Norman's mother's surprise birthday party to be held at the Chameleon Bistro, Eugene Crenshaw, the owner, a longtime friend of the Rhodeses. Concurrently, there is a community effort to save the Steiner, a historical building, from redevelopment, that effort led by Norman's new girlfriend, lawyer Diana Graves. While her efforts have led to construction being halted for the time being, she fears that purported shoddy work done in a previous renovation in 1995 has made the building irreparably damaged. Following the surprise party, Hannah and Norman, walking by the Steiner, hear an explosion inside the building, they, investigating, not only seeing moving light meaning someone having just been inside, but discover human skeletal remains at the bottom of the elevator shaft, now exposed due to the explosion. Mike confirms from the police investigation that the body is that of Jerry McDowell, a known criminal who went missing in 1995 and who was implicated in a jewelry heist at that time. With it being a cold case, Mike's boss, Sheriff Ron Ealing, is concerned solely with the explosion and closing the jewelry case. As such, Hannah gets Mike's blessing for the two of them to investigate Jerry's death on their own in wanting their own closure to the incident. Beyond Hannah and Mike's initial belief that the explosion and finding the body was not coincidental in the building demolition most-likely eventually exposing the corpse, this situation places Hannah and Mike's relationship in a new realm in Hannah being involved not impeding a police investigation on the same case, or so she believes.

Hannah and Mike are still not speaking to each other, Mike who wants to respect her wishes to give her the space she has requested of him, while signs point to Hannah actually missing him as he obviously misses her. Hannah may have no choice but to speak to him as when she, Delores, and Michelle are house hunting for a place for Michelle with Michelle's real estate agent Johanna Grimes, Delores discovers a murdered dead body in one of the houses, that of one of the Cookie Jar's regular customers, Mike ending up being the lead police investigator. While Delores takes up what is Hannah's regular role of the unofficial investigator in feeling the responsibility in discovering the body, Hannah, beyond needing to speak to Mike in an official capacity, cannot help but insert herself into the investigation, especially when Mike's lead suspect is Jed Sawyer. Jed, who was recently released from prison where he was serving time for a robbery, is trying to restart his life straight in Lake Eden as a handyman, Hannah, one of many in town, who wants to give Jed that second chance. While Mike follows the evidence provided to him, Hannah follows the life of the victim which was undergoing many changes, some known and some not. Beyond the official and unofficial investigation, Hannah and Mike's relationship may be affected by Bradford Ramsey having just moved to town, he and Hannah who once were in a relationship when they knew each other in college.

As Hannah Swensen is in a baking class, she is disrupted by sinister equipment tampering that provokes an explosion that rocks Lake Eden. Suspicions arise, especially when a colleague is found dead. Join Hannah as she delves into the mystery, enlisting the help of her loved ones and crossing paths with the enigmatic prosecuting attorney, Chad Norton. It's a tale of intrigue and suspense that will keep you guessing until the very end!

Hannah and Chad flirt with their own paths to solve the same murder while working to clear a colleague who is implicated in the crime. Meanwhile, Delores gets her big break