Kill the Competition (a humorous romantic mystery) [Kindle Edition]

Stephanie Bond (Author)

Book Description

KILL THE COMPETITION is a frothy, funny page-turner!

"Stephanie Bond is in her usual rare form, and that form is utterly delightful. KILL THE COMPETITION is an excellent, fast-paced, sexy story."  --AOL Romance Fiction Forum

   There's only one sure way to get to the top:  Kill the competition.   Four women who carpool to their jobs in midtown Atlanta learn that competition can be murder, y'all!  

More praise for KILL THE COMPETITION:

 
   "With a fast pace that moves the story along and smart snappy dialog between the characters, Ms Bond has penned another fascinating read that will leave her readers wanting more from this talented and imaginative author."  --A Romance Review

   "Ms. Bond's talent for creating characters is superb, and you feel like you know them personally. Her narrative is so descriptive that I smelled the exhaust fumes along the Georgia 400 and I-85 to downtown Atlanta."  --AOL Romance Fiction Forum

   "Whatever book you want, you will probably find it in KILL THE COMPETITION. Laughter, suspense, passion, and female bonding all combine in this realistically complex and sometimes wacky book. Ms. Bond has created magic, and she pulls more than one rabbit out of the hat to surprise her readers."  --Academic Planet

    "With such an ominous title as KILL THE COMPETITION, readers probably expect plenty of suspense and tense drama. But Ms. Bond skillfully manages to infuse the serious business of murder with enough charm, romance, and humor to give the story a fun, light-hearted feeling."  --Romance Reviews Today

   Starred review! "DO read this novel." --Publishers Weekly
 

     If you love the humor of Janet Evanovich or Mary Kay Andrews, check out KILL THE COMPETITION!

**Other laugh-out-loud romantic mysteries from best-selling author Stephanie Bond:

OUR HUSBAND--Hell hath no fury like three women scorned!
GOT YOUR NUMBER--You can run, but your past will eventually catch up with you.
I THINK I LOVE YOU--Sisters share everything in their closets, including the skeletons.
WHOLE LOTTA TROUBLE--They didn't plan on getting caught...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite its title and blood-red cover art, this tart, down-to-earth tale from Bond (I Think I Love You, etc.) focuses more on the nature of female friendships than on the murder mystery that throws the heroine's life into a tailspin. New to Atlanta, finance specialist Belinda Hennessey is glad to have her carpool mates to take her mind off her failed marriage. Before she can get too comfortable, however, she hits Officer Wade Alexander's police cruiser, misses a crucial meeting and clashes with her malevolent boss, Margo, who wants her to overlook the fact that the company they're merging with may have fudged its numbers. Belinda reluctantly agrees and then finds herself in hot water when Margo turns up dead. Though at times too gullible for her own good, Belinda comes into her own over the course of the novel. Her uncertainties about her job, her zany friends and her budding relationship with Wade are ably portrayed, as is the setting (Bond describes Atlanta's traffic as only a resident could). Clever snippets from the carpool quartet's work-in-progress, a relationship dos and don'ts book for women ("DON'T underestimate the extent to which men underestimate women"), leaven the story, as does the women's banter. Readers who prefer heady sex and romance won't find either here, but for those who appreciate fun, classy, relationship-centered tales: DO read this novel.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Stephanie Bond walked away from a corporate computer programming career to write fiction full-time. To date, Bond has written over 60 romance and mystery novels.  She lives in midtown Atlanta. For more information, see Stephanie Bond's Amazon author page.

Product Details

• File Size: 552 KB
• Print Length: 390 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0060539836
• Publisher: NeedtoRead Books (October 27, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0060E7MSS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,662 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #73 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Mystery & Suspense > Mystery
  • #86 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Comedy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining August 22, 2004

By Emily Flippin Maruna

Format:Mass Market Paperback

After reading Bond's "Got Your Number", I swore I'd never pick up another one of her books. But I'd heard so many good things about "Kill the Competition" I had to give her another chance. And boy, am I glad I did!

"Kill the Competition", while not being a particularly steamy read, was extremely enjoyable. The mystery kept me captivated, the by-play between the carpool gals was interesting and funny, and the question of which man the main character Belinda would pick was a nice switch on most romances where the hero is slated from the beginning.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars delightful relationship drama inside a police procedural November 6, 2003

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Having just moved from Cincinnati to Atlanta, financial expert Belinda Hennessey adjusts to her new town. She knows that her new town is more expensive than her previous one and that the rush hour traffic into the city is unbearable especially from the north side. Thus she has joined those drives using the HOV carpool lane into and out of the city.

Belinda works on an assessment whether her new firm Archer Furniture should acquire the mom and pop Payton Manufacturing. Her boss "Maniac Margo" wants the report done yesterday (weekend or not). Belinda concludes that the potential new addition cooked the books, but Margo tells her to be quiet. Reluctantly Belinda agrees being the new kid on the block and wary to make waves. Not long afterward, someone murders Margo with the evidence pointing towards Belinda due to the fiscal cover-up or a member of the car pool who have had run-ins with the now dead queen of nasty.

KILL THE COMPETITION is a delightful relationship drama with a strong police procedural plot to anchor the tale. Though the romance between Belinda and police officer Wade Alexander is warm and fun to observe and the murder investigation cleverly intertwined into the prime plot, the tale belongs to the four female car poolers. Their outlook on Atlanta, work, and men forge a strong bond between them and make for a witty novel that readers will cherish especially if you ever been stuck in Spaghetti Junction (Atlanta's most notorious parking lot during the rush hour).

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars What Would we be Without our Girlfriends? April 15, 2012

By Dianne E. Socci-Tetro TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

As several other reviewers noted there are a few typos, but as far as repetitive words etc, this is the authors style. This is why she may be getting 'so many' 5 star votes, votes that are from long time fans and feel comfortable with this style. This is an author that once you've read her first book, and IF you are able to fall in love with that book, will captivate you with the rest of her books. This is a 99 cent book e-book...you sometimes get what you pay for. Typos are a small price to pay for an excellent story and wonderful characters!

If you love novels that are centered around women friends and how they can one minute love you and the next nearly hate you (or think you've committed murder!) then this novel--actually ANY Stephanie Bond novel will be for you.

It takes a long time for the murder to be committed in this book, but that's OK since we are spending the time learning about Belinda ( a new Georgian transplant from Cincinnati) and the women she will be commuting with to her new job. We will also see her building (or trying to build relationships ) with a sexy voiced traffic reporter, and Wade, the police officer whom she hit the very first day of her commuting.

The mystery will be why is her nasty boss Margo trying to get her to fudge on a report, why is Melinda so reluctant to talk about her es-husband,why did another woman working for the company have 'fallen' down an elevator shaft, and who is trying to maybe kill Belinda. When Margo is found dead in a VERY compressing place things REALLY go from bad to worse for Melinda.

The epilogue is extremely clever so make sure you read beyond the authors notes so you don't miss it!

More About the Author

Stephanie Bond was several years into a corporate computer programming career when an instructor in her night school MBA program remarked that she had a flair for writing and encouraged her to submit one of her projects to academic journals. "But," Stephanie says, "all I could think was 'I wonder if I could write a romance novel?'" Bond grew up on a farm in eastern Kentucky where the entertainment choices were few. Luckily, she had a beloved aunt who shared her passion for reading. "When she visited once a year, she brought boxes and boxes of books by Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney and lush historicals--I was in heaven! I think I learned most of what I know about world history from historical romance novels. So suddenly thinking about writing in the genre of the books I loved so much was very exciting." After writing every spare moment for two years, Stephanie sold her first romantic comedy manuscript, IRRESISTIBLE? to Harlequin books. Two years later, she walked away from her corporate career to write commercial fiction full time. To date, she's published over 60 romance and mystery projects with Random House, St. Martin's Press, HarperCollins, and Mira Books, and is most well-known for her BODY MOVERS humorous mystery series. Look for Stephanie's new mystery series TWO GUYS DETECTIVE AGENCY coming May 2013. (TWO GUYS DETECTIVE AGENCY has been optioned for TV series development!) Stephanie lives in midtown Atlanta and is probably working on a story at this very moment.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#34 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#2 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#3 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#8 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#9 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#11 in Books > Romance

#2 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#3 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#8 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#9 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#11 in Books > Romance