Body Movers
Stephanie Bond
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Published: December, 2012 (Harlequin MIRA)
Rating: 
Carlotta Wren’s life hasn’t turned out as she’d planned. She didn’t plan for her parents to skip bail for a white-collar crime, leaving her to raise her brother. She didn’t plan on having the silver spoon ripped from her mouth and forgoing college to work retail. She didn’t plan on her blue-blood fiancé dumping her. And she didn’t plan on still being single ten years later, working at Neiman Marcus, with no idea where her fugitive parents are.
She’s coping. Until…
…her lovable brother is arrested, and the hunky cop decides to reopen her parents’ case.
…her brother becomes a body mover for the morgue and his sexy boss gets Carlotta involved.
…her former fiancé’s wife is murdered, fingering Carlotta.
With three men in her life, Carlotta has added motivation to help bag a murderer to keep her own well-dressed body from being next on the list!
I was trolling about looking for books reminiscent of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series when I stumbled upon the Body Movers series.
I was surprised to see the POV switch between Carlotta and Wesley as I believe this is the first time I’ve read a dual perspective cozy mystery. Ms. Wren has had a tough go of it recently and Wesley’s antics aren’t helping. I felt like each of the characters were really authentic and likeable. Wesley frustrated me beyond belief. He very clearly thinks and acts like an 18 year old but with the added complication of being a gambling addict and just continues to pile on the mounting debt in his misguided efforts to pay off his violent loan sharks.
I am enjoying the mystery behind their parents’ flee from justice so far and it gives an excellent excuse for the good detective to haunt Carly’s doorstep.
I think juggling three interests might be too much. I do not care for second romances so it should come as no surprise that I was hoping for the ex-fiancé to make a hasty exit. I really like the other two so I suspect I will get frustrated if Bond keeps showing favoritism towards Peter.
Overall, this was a decent cozy mystery with strong romance undertoes ready to snatch our main character away. There is a strong set up for the rest of the series. A warning for future readers, there is a slight cliffhanger that has me eager to read the rest of the series but it isn’t as though we weren’t expecting it.
