Hannah Swensen Books in Order

Below is the complete list of Hannah Swensen books in order of publication. This is the recommended reading sequence for the series by Joanne Fluke.

Hannah Swensen Series

1. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (2000)
   Buy on Amazon
2. Strawberry Shortcake Murder (2001)
   Buy on Amazon
3. Blueberry Muffin Murder (2001)
   Buy on Amazon
4. Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (2003)
   Buy on Amazon
5. Fudge Cupcake Murder (2004)
   Buy on Amazon
6. Sugar Cookie Murder (2004)
   Buy on Amazon
7. Peach Cobbler Murder (2005)
   Buy on Amazon
8. Cherry Cheesecake Murder (2006)
   Buy on Amazon
9. Key Lime Pie Murder (2007)
   Buy on Amazon
10. Candy Cane Murder (2007)
    Buy on Amazon
11. Candy for Christmas (2008)
    Buy on Amazon
12. Carrot Cake Murder (2008)
    Buy on Amazon
13. Cream Puff Murder (2008)
    Buy on Amazon
14. Plum Pudding Murder (2009)
    Buy on Amazon
15. Apple Turnover Murder (2010)
    Buy on Amazon
16. Gingerbread Cookie Murder (2010)
    Buy on Amazon
17. Devil’s Food Cake Murder (2011)
    Buy on Amazon
18. Cinnamon Roll Murder (2012)
    Buy on Amazon
19. Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (2013)
    Buy on Amazon
20. Blackberry Pie Murder (2014)
    Buy on Amazon
21. Double Fudge Brownie Murder (2015)
    Buy on Amazon
22. Wedding Cake Murder (2016)
    Buy on Amazon
23. Christmas Caramel Murder (2016)
    Buy on Amazon
24. Banana Cream Pie Murder (2017)
    Buy on Amazon
25. Raspberry Danish Murder (2019)
    Buy on Amazon
26. Christmas Cake Murder (2019)
    Buy on Amazon
27. Chocolate Cream Pie Murder (2019)
    Buy on Amazon
28. Coconut Layer Cake Murder (2020)
    Buy on Amazon
29. Christmas Cupcake Murder (2020)
    Buy on Amazon
30. Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder (2021)
    Buy on Amazon
31. Christmas Dessert Murder (2021)
    Buy on Amazon
32. Caramel Pecan Roll Murder (2022)
    Buy on Amazon
33. Pink Lemonade Cake Murder (2023)
    Buy on Amazon

About Hannah Swensen Series

Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen series is one of the defining successes of the culinary cozy mystery. It begins with Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, first published in 2000, and has grown into a long-running sequence centered on Hannah, a baker in Lake Eden, Minnesota, whose work at The Cookie Jar places her at the social heart of town life just as murders keep pulling her into amateur investigation. Fluke’s official series page still presents it as an active line, with Pink Lemonade Cake Murder among the recent entries, a 25th-anniversary edition of Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder released in 2025, and Pumpkin Chiffon Pie Murder listed as forthcoming.

What makes the series endure is not simply that each book combines a murder with recipes. Plenty of cozies use food or craft as decoration; Hannah Swensen makes baking central to the whole reading experience. The Cookie Jar is not just a workplace but a narrative hub, a place where local gossip, family tension, business life, romance, and community routine all intersect. That gives the books a stable social center, which is one reason publication order pays off. The mysteries themselves may each have their own case, but the world around Hannah deepens gradually, and Lake Eden works best when experienced as an accumulating place rather than a backdrop that resets every time.

Hannah herself is also a large part of the series’ staying power. She is not written as a glamorous sleuth or an eccentric investigator built around one comic gimmick. She is practical, observant, rooted in local life, and believable as someone who would know everybody’s habits well enough to notice when something is wrong. That ordinary embeddedness is crucial. The books work because Hannah belongs to the town she investigates. She is close enough to people to care, but also curious enough to keep digging when others would rather look away. In a series this long, that balance matters more than any single murder setup.

Publication order matters because Hannah’s relationships and the wider social fabric of Lake Eden evolve over time. This is not a pure puzzle franchise where the same cast snaps back into position after every ending. Family members, recurring friends, law-enforcement figures, and romantic complications all gather weight across the books. Even readers who come primarily for the mystery plots usually end up reading for continuity as much as for surprise. That is especially true in a cozy series, where familiarity is part of the pleasure. The later books land best when the reader already understands the habits, loyalties, and long-running tensions underneath the newest case.

Another useful point of context is how thoroughly the series became Joanne Fluke’s signature work. Her publisher identifies her directly with Hannah Swensen, calling her the New York Times bestselling author of the Hannah Swensen mysteries, and official material also notes the Hallmark adaptation history beginning with Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. That crossover into screen adaptations says something real about the books’ appeal. They offer not only mystery, but an atmosphere readers want to revisit: small-town comfort, dessert-centered charm, recurring personalities, and danger presented without abandoning reassurance.

For readers who already have the list above, the best way to think about Hannah Swensen is not as an endless chain of dessert titles, but as a highly consistent fictional world built on repetition used well. The formula is part of the attraction, but so is the refinement of that formula across decades. Read in publication order, the series becomes more than a run of culinary murders. It becomes an ongoing portrait of a town, a business, and a heroine whose steady presence turns comfort into its own kind of storytelling engine.