New! The Body in the Apartment by Judi Lynn #WordWranglers

The Wranglers welcome mystery writer, Judi Lynn, whose newest The Body... book came out Tuesday! Thanks for coming, Judi!

I want to thank Liz Flaherty for inviting me to Word Wranglers today.  Although Liz and I don’t live that far apart in Indiana, it’s far enough that we never meet each other.  She’s become a blog and twitter friend, though.  And I enjoy her writing.

She writes warm, heartfelt romances, and I write mysteries, but I enjoy a good romance mixed in with my murders.  And even though romance novels demand a Happy Ever After, the nice thing about mysteries is that I can show the romance AFTER the couple says “I do.” 

In my first Jazzi Zander novel, The Body in the Attic, Jazzi and her cousin, Jerod, flip houses.  Ansel, a tall, blond Norwegian contractor works with them.  When he first joined their team, Jazzi was engaged, so off limits.  Then, by the time Jazzi and Chad broke up, Ansel’s living with a nurse—so he’s off limits—until Emily gives him an ultimatum--move to California with her or farewell.  He chooses to stay in River Bluffs, so he and Jazzi are finally both single at the same time.  And, well, you can probably guess what happens from there.  At the end of the book, they move in together.  Since it’s a cozy, though, everything’s off-screen.

I get impatient with mystery writers who tease me with a couple who flirt with each other, book after book, so at the end of book two, Jazzi and Ansel are engaged.  At the end of book three, they get married, even though the rings and wedding all take place in the middle of solving a murder or more.  And in book four, The Body in the Apartment, due out March 17, they’re happy newlyweds, looking forward to her cousin’s wife having their third baby. 

In this book, I get to show them as a devoted couple.  They take pleasure in spending time together.  Jazzi is close to her family and invites them to Sunday meals each week. She and Ansel enjoy cooking the meals together.  While Ansel fusses over his pug, George, Jazzi spoils her cats, Inky and Marmalade.  And Ansel supports her every time she’s involved in solving a murder.

Mysteries might focus on interviewing witnesses and suspects, but romance rounds out the character of the protagonist. It’s fun to throw it in with finding a murderer.

https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/39309

The charming homes of River Bluffs, Indiana, make perfect projects for house-flipper Jazzi Zanders. Less charming is her hothead brother-in-law, who's a bit of a fixer-upper himself.
But could he also be a murderer?
 
Jazzi married her gorgeous contractor Ansel—not his family. But somehow she keeps living with them. So she's delighted to help Ansel's brother Radley move out of their home and into his own place, in the same building as his work supervisor, Donovan. But when Donovan is shot and his apartment ransacked following an argument with Ansel and Radley's older brother Bain, their sibling becomes a suspect—especially after his missing gun turns up as the murder weapon.
 
Told not to leave town by Detective Gaff, big brother moves in with . . . Jazzi and Ansel. Now Jazzi needs to prove Bain's no killer, not only to keep him out of jail—but to get him out of their house. What was the killer looking for in Donovan's apartment? And what will happen to the next person who gets in the way?

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Judi Lynn lives in Indiana with her husband, a bossy gray cat, a noisy Chihuahua, and a parakeet.  She loves to cook and owns more cookbooks than any mortal woman would ever need.  That’s why so much food sneaks into her stories.  She also loves her flower beds, but is a haphazard gardener, at best.  She writes cozy mysteries for Lyrical Press and paranormal mysteries on Amazon. 

Blog & webpage:  http://writingmusings.com/

Author Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/

Twitter: @judypost

On BookBub at Judi Lynn with a link to Judith Post (for her urban fantasies):  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/judi-lynn