Body Movers (Body Movers #1) – Stephanie Bond

So 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. But 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 (a good customer) 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!

Breaking It Down Further: Ten years after Carlotta Wren’s parents flee from the law for a white collar crime, her fiancé dumps her, and she’s stuck taking care of her younger brother Wesley, the bodies start piling up. Wesley has developed quite the gambling problem and owes large sums of money to his backers. Carlotta, working retail at Neiman Marcus, doesn’t make enough money to support this habit either and after getting caught hacking into government systems, Wesley is in even more trouble than where he started. Then after a harsh confrontation from her ex-fiance’s current wife Angela, all eyes are on Carlotta when Angela turns up dead after drowning in her own swimming pool. Did ex Peter kill her off after reuniting with Carlotta? Did Carlotta kill her off to get Peter back? Is there a new serial killer in Atlanta? While fending off three (yes, THREE) attractive men (Wesley’s new body-mover boss Coop, ex Peter, and the dreaded detective), can Carlotta solve a murder and keep her lust in check?

Well, this was enjoyable, but I do have to say that I was hoping for better. Maybe since there were three possible romances, I really wanted one of them to start panning out. Coop’s lust for Carlotta is just a crush, she’s hopping back on the Peter-train against her better judgment, and I personally was also rooting for the detective (as well as Coop) just because she seemed to hate him so much that she liked him. As for the murder mystery, well played out, but still not quite the ending I wanted it to have. Carlotta does some good sleuthing and like any good mystery heroine, hunts down her own clues instead of leaving it to the professionals! Very good with that side of the novel, but I was even still just mildly disappointed with who ended up being the murderer here. Somehow just not satisfying. Maybe I was also led on by the fact that it was called Body Movers and I just expected all of the characters to be involved in the title business and not just her brothers happening upon it. Oh well. I did still like the characters that were introduced and I’d like to continue on in the series!

3.5/5 stars
Well, I just couldn’t get enough out of it to give it 4 stars. I did like a lot of things about this book, but it was another one that after I finished reading it, I just still wasn’t happy. I really hope I like the next book in the series better! Definitely willing to keep on reading the series.

If You Liked This, You Might Like…
This Pen for Hire by Laura Levine — Freelance writer Jaine is on the job when a mild-mannered geek is set up on a date with an aerobics instructor who turns up murdered
…OR…
Candy Apple Red by Nancy Bush — Okay, so confession is that I actually read the second book (Electric Blue) in this series (Jane Kelly) by accident. I actually didn’t like the 1st book as much as the 2nd, but I always say to start with the first!