Mallory is such a cookie, sweet girl, (no pun intended), you just cannot, not enjoy her train of thoughts when she is thinking on the events going on in her life. You'll come to know her ex, her wannabe lawyer, her journalist, her employees, her cousin, and her arch-enemy. They all compliment each other, as characters in this cookie-esh whodunnit mystery. A fun read.

Mallory Monroe has left the big city behind (and the big salary, and the stressors) to take over her beloved aunt’s cookie shop. This is good news for her and her boyfriend Gil, as they are now in the same state, so hopefully they’ll be able to see more of each other!
She loves the shop. She inherited one of her aunts workers, Claudia, and she has her longtime friend Kip working there too. She loves what she does, and so does the neighborhood. She is known for having delicious treats, as well as beautiful ones. So, when someone comes in to say that her aunt stole their cookie recipe, Mallory is not listening to any part of this. Her aunt would never do such a thing! An argument ensues, and next thing you know, the woman is found dead…by Mallory, in her home! And now Mallory is the prime suspect!
After all, she just had a fight with her…in public.
So, Mallory sets out to find out who actually murdered her. Along the way she meets a handsome detective, as well as many neighbors and friends. Who could possibly be capable of doing something like this?
Oh…and also, she finds out that her loving boyfriend is not who she thinks he is! There is turmoil. There are laughs. There are tears. There are a lot of characters involved. But through it all is the camaraderie of a small town that sticks together.
Sweet book with some unexpected twists.
3 1/2 stars for me!
Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC of the audiobook.

Mallory has relocated to a small town in Connecticut to take over her aunt’s bakery. The Cookie Shop is quickly becoming popular for its cookie bouquets and the cookies made from her aunt’s recipes. Her two employees are not getting along and that is creating tension in the kitchen.
After finding her boyfriend with another woman, Mallory doesn’t believe things could get any worse, but the next day more tension erupts with local food blogger Beatrice Wright. Queen Bea, as the locals call her, accuses Mallory of stealing and using one of her cookie recipes in the shop. Unfortunately, Mallory’s troubles did not stop there.
This was a great first in a series. The characters are developed nicely and are realistic. The plot moved at a nice pace. I was engaged very soon after beginning the book. I would recommend this book.

A good cozy/beach mistery read. We follow Mallory in her new chapter in life- a small town bakery. Everything begins well until it starts to crumbles. Someone gets murdered and Mallory is on a mission to find out who is the killer. It has its twists and turns, everyone has a secret and everyone is a suspect. The story is light and interesting until the very end.

I.received an early audiobook for which I will be giving my own, honest review. A good cozy mystery is my guilty pleasure. This is the first in a series of just another cookie shop cozy mystery.. Nothing that really sets it apart from the others. To be honest, I never was grabbed to get into this one because I wasn’t drawn into liking the main character, Mallory, She is what I considered to be a self absorbed niece. She was an ungrateful young woman who has just inherited her aunts cookie shop and comes in planning to make all these updates. A couple of the employees have remained but she envisions making and designing cookie bouquets to help save the shop. I became tired oh hearing about those cookie bouquets. The murder was typical cozy style. I would moderately recommend to others cozy readers or to newbies to this genre. Go out and get your copy now and have w holiday read. Thank you to the following:

#NetGalley
#DreamscapeAudio
#DebraSennefelder
#HowTheMurderCrumbles
PubDate: June 20, 2023

Extremely average cozy murder story. Has all the right pieces to be good, but the author struggles to pull them together well. The lead is oddly unlikeable in a way that is clearly not intentional. The mystery is good. Most of the characters are interesting. The set up is fun. All the parts are there. But I listened to the final 10% 3 times because I couldn't remember finishing it. There's just nothing special or memorable or particularly enjoyable here, and it's really too bad. The addition of the recipes is nice. The audio narrator sounds too young for the characters she's reading. Thirty year old characters all sounded like teenagers.

This was a fun cozy mystery and a lot of twists and turns and some great characters. I loved the interactions between different people, although at times it was a little challenging to keep track of who everyone was...

Yet the dialogue was enjoyable, and the storyline kept me engaged from beginning to end. I look forward to the next book in the series!

Thank you to Debra Sennefelder, Dreamscape Audio and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

Thank you for the ALC.

It was a good story, but it dragged on a little bit. I liked the characters a lot. They have cute quirks, and their personalities are generally likable (when they're supposed to be). I never saw the twist coming, though, and that last quarter of the book was so gripping.

The narrator was okay. She didn't really change her voice for any other characters, so it was sometimes difficult to tell who was speaking without a dialogue tag. Her narrating generally lacked emotion.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the opportunity to hear this story in exchange for an honest review. This was the type of cozy mystery I have been looking for. I liked it from the beginning . It reminded me of another series I loved. I cannot wait to read the second one.

The first book in a new Cookie Shop Mystery series, this book is cute and fun in the way a good cosy mystery is.

It may remind you of the Hannah Swensen mysteries, but it's enough different that fans of that should be able to read this without feeling like it's a rehash of the same thing.

Mallory is the MC who owns a bakeshop that used to belong to her Aunt.

A rival baker is murdered and Mallory must find out who it is so that suspicions are no longer on her and she can get back to baking.

There's a bit of a potential romance brewing with the investigating police officer and her friends are great side characters.

Overall, this was a good cosy mystery.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was good as well.

How the Murder Crumbles (Cookie Shop Mystery, #1) by Debra Sennefelder was an enjoyable first installment in a new cozy mystery series. Mallory Monroe had recently taken ownership of her late aunt’s cookie shop in Wingate, Connecticut. Her dream and goal was to expand the business and increase the profits by creating cookie bouquets with various themes. Mallory inherited two co-workers to help her in her endeavors. Things were going pretty well for Mallory until two things occurred. The first one was personal. Mallory caught her boyfriend cheating on her. The second one involved the food blogger, Beatrice Wright, better known as “Queen Bea”. “Queen Bea” accused Mallory of stealing her recipe for the decadent Almond Melt Away cookies she was selling in her shop. Mallory insisted that it was her aunt’s recipe that she was using. “Queen Bea” left the cookie shop in a huff but not before she threatened Mallory that she better stop selling them. When Mallory went to “Queen Bea’s” house to discuss the matter with her, Mallory discovered that “Queen Bea” had been murdered. Mallory found her on the floor surrounded by flour. A bloody rolling pin was spotted close to her body and the letters “Ma” we’re written in the flour. All evidence pointed to Mallory as the number one suspect. Had Mallory killed Queen Bea? Mallory was determined to prove that she was innocent. Who was the killer?

How the Murder Crumbles was fast paced and kept me guessing to the very end. My only complaint was that there were a lot of characters and suspects and sometimes it was hard to keep track of who was who. Overall, I enjoyed it, though. The book cover was very enticing as well. I listened to the audiobook that was read by Ellen Quay. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series. If you enjoy cozy mysteries that are set in a small quaint town then I believe that you will enjoy this book. All the talk and descriptions of the cookies will make your mouth water at any rate. I recommend this book highly.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media LLC for allowing me to listen to the audiobook of How the Murder Crumbles by Debra Sennefelder through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

How the Murder Crumbles is the awesome debut cozy mystery in the Cookie Shop Mystery series. The characters are likable and interesting and the mystery kept me guessing until the end! Mallory Monroe takes over her deceased Aunt's cookie shop and Claudia was part of the deal. Neither Mallory nor her friend Kip, who also works at the shop, get along with Claudia. Mallory catches her boyfriend with another woman. Same old storyline? No it is an interesting twist that adds to the book! A food blogger, Beatrice shows up at The Cookie.Shop and accuses Mallory of using a stolen cookie recipe. Mallory finds Beatrice dead and ends.up as a suspect. This hurts the bakery and Mallory needs to clear her name. She uncovers a lot of secrets.with her sleuthing and puts herself in some tenuous situations. Detective.Will Hannigan is working the case and there is a potential romance. The characters and the various relationships really add to the story. There was quite a bit going on that kept my attention and it was a good pace. I really enjoyed this cozy mystery.and it is one of the best debut books I have read in a while! I had the audiobook and it was very well done! The narrator did a fantastic job with the voices. #HowTheMurderCrumbles #NetGalley #CrookedLaneBooks

Although I enjoyed this book, I wanted a deeper understanding of the characters and their relationships. I wanted to fall in love with the supporting cast. That will probably be better as the author writes more books.

I enjoyed How the Murder Crumbles and look forward to the next book in the series. The narrator did a great job.

Narrator: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ending: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Main character: ⭐️

How the Murder Crumbles is
Book 1 in the Cookie Shop Mystery series from Debra Sennefelder. This was my first book from the author, and I was glad to be able to start from the beginning of this series. I'm not a regular reader of cozy mysteries, but do enjoy them. The small town baker solving murders has been done, you've probably read them or even watched the Hallmark series. This being an unoriginal idea is something I wasn't going to hold against the book, but truth be told the entire baking thing annoyed me. By the end I was *so* tired of hearing about Mallory's freaking cookie bouquets. Heck, I was so tired of Mallory period. I found her immature, pushy, ungrateful, unappreciative, and so full of herself. She acts as though she invented decorated cookies, and the way people fawn over them was really over the top. She was so downright rude to people when questioning/accusing them (not her job btw) that I can't imagine those neighbors wanting anything to do with her in future books. Her business is supposedly struggling but she's *never* there. I don't know how she found the time to decorate all of those "little works of art" when she had little to do with the baking at all. These are small but some things that bothered me, the author kept describing things as "lyrical" and grown adults were constantly scrunching or wrinkling their noses at things. I found the writing often too descriptive, and the story got bogged down because of it. The detective is endlessly amused by everything Mallory says, no matter how unfunny or not clever it is.

I give cozies a lot of leeway when reading/rating, but I just can't with this series. Not with such an unlikable main character. The way she treated Aspen was really appalling and insta-turned me off the MC. The supporting characters were pretty lovely, I have to say. I won't be picking up another book in this series, but would recommend it to cozy mystery lovers, as it was otherwise enjoyable despite the MC and what I felt was a rather rushed conclusion.

The book was narrated by Ellen Quay, who did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life. She has a pleasant, and clear reading voice, and the characters were distinguishable enough. Her child's voice is really spot-on.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the advanced audiobook I received in exchange for an honest review.

Dnf’ed at 16%.

Usually I would just push through the book especially when it’s been okay. But, I just couldn’t bring myself to pick this back up as I didn’t really care about the mystery. This was my first cozy murder mystery book so this might just be a normal cozy mystery and this could just not be the right genre for me.

I wish we saw more of the characters in the beginning to flesh them out more and make me care about them. But, what I read was a solid three star.

How the Murder Crumbles is a fun, cozy little murder mystery. We follow Mallory as she tries to clear her name for a murder she didn't commit, and then more murder happens. All of it started over a cookie recipe that she was accused of stealing.

As Mallory investigates, she's threatened multiple times and in the end, she uncovers more crimes committed by multiple people. It's always fun to watch an amateur sleuth play detective in a cozy murder mystery.


I really enjoyed this read. Thank you for the audio ARC.


To see more of my reviews visit my Goodreads and Instagram at Sacred Hearth Book Reviews.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/104047498-sacred-hearth-book-reviews

https://www.instagram.com/sacredhearthbookreviews/

Whether it’s cookies, pies, or cakes, when it comes to cozy mysteries being some kind of baker seems to be the most popular profession. In Debra Sennefelder’s newest book How the Murder Crumbles (the first book in her new Cookie Shop Mystery series), heroine Mallory Monroe happens to be a cookie maker. She seems to think things are going well. Her cookie shop seems to be off to a decent start (having taken over the shop from her recently deceased aunt), despite what her cousin thinks. She’s got a big order from her boyfriend’s company and is going to be featured in the paper soon. But suddenly things change for her. She finds out her boyfriend has been seeing another women and she has a very public confrontation with Beatrice Wright, a local food blogger who accuses her of using a stolen cookie recipe. As if that isn’t bad enough soon after Beatrice turns up dead…and Mallory is the one to discover her dead body…so naturally instantly is seen as a prime suspect. But Mallory knows she didn’t do it and is determined to clear her name and find out who is responsible. It doesn’t take her long to discover the list of people who had grudges against Beatrice is fairly extensive. This is a solid/fun series debut, with a well constructed mystery and good cast of characters, especially our likable heroine Mallory. I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes open for the next book in the series. Ellen Quay does a great job with narration. I’d like to thank Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review an advanced copy of the audio version of How the Murder Crumbles.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1UOVTVV8O51BY/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

I enjoyed the narration of this book. It was clear, and spoken with the right emotion in each situation.

I have read one other book by this author which I enjoyed, so I was excited to listen to this one. The narrator was pretty good. There were a lot of characters and I had trouble following them. At times I found myself not paying 100 % attention and I had to rewind a little bit to see what I missed.

I did like that Mallory, the MC bought out her aunt's bakery, so it is still in the family. Beatrice, who was Mallory's aunts best friend comes roaring in to the bakery, acusing Mallory of stealing her recipe. Mallory goes over to prove to Beatrice that she didn't, but instead finds her dead. Mallory starts poking around and asking questions. I liked the mystery and the writing. I will probably read the next one.