Voted Most Likely To Murder – Class Reunions, Crimes, and Cozy Chaos!

Last Updated on April 22, 2026

You know that feeling when you pick up a cozy expecting something familiar and comfy…and then realise you’ve accidentally found a new group of fictional friends you’d happily spend a whole weekend with?

That was me with Voted Most Likely to Murder.

This isn’t one of those books where you have to slog through a slow start to get to the good stuff. You’re thrown in with Belinda, Stevie, and Jolene at that wonderfully awkward high‑school reunion stage of life, where everyone is pretending they’re fine and absolutely not still haunted by ancient teenage drama.

The murder just happens to blow all of that wide open. I felt like I was right there with them: cringing at old yearbook photos, side‑eyeing the “most popular” crowd, and then suddenly having to ask, “Okay but which one of you might actually be a killer?”

So let’s get into the plot and what it is all about…
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A Killer High School Reunion

The story drops us into Little Blue Harbour, a picture‑perfect small town on the Nova Scotia coast where gossip travels faster than the tide and everyone knows who bought what at the bakery before breakfast.

Our main sleuth, Belinda Bishop, couldn’t wait to get out of town after graduation and had big dreams of becoming a journalist.

14 years later, things have not gone to plan at all, and Belinda has moved back home after her life in Ottawa implodes. To add insult to injury, she is coaxed into attending a strangely timed fourteen‑year high‑school reunion, where she reconnects with her old partner‑in‑crime Stephanie “Stevie” Hart and braces herself to run into her ex–best friend turned nemesis, Jolene Dexter, now the polished “Harbour Queen” with a fisherman husband, Trawler, and gifted daughter, Sadie.
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Old social dynamics snap back into place around the Pageant Minions (Holly, Julie, Rebecca, Amanda), Big Andy Perch (now a history teacher and football coach), and a whole crowd of classmates whose lives didn’t all turn out the way they were supposed to.

Tensions explode when rumors of an emotional affair between Jolene and Andy boil over into a very public scene on the dance floor, sending Jolene’s jealous husband stalking out of the gym and leaving Andy trying (and failing) to smooth things over.
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And that’s when it happens. Belinda and Stevie decide to call it a night, and minutes later, Belinda literally trips over a body at the bottom of the stairs.

With one of their former classmates murdered in the stairwell, suspicion falls hard on Jolene when a scarf of hers is found under the body, and her movements after the argument are shaky at best.

Despite their long‑standing grudge, Belinda can’t quite believe Jolene is a killer, and Stevie pushes both of them into a reluctant alliance to prove Jolene’s innocence.

The three women start digging into the victim’s life and the town’s secrets. Their suspect list quickly grows – basically everyone at the reunion – and as the trio follows trails through school offices, local businesses, the boardwalk, and the right‑on‑the‑water pub, they uncover overlapping motives, hidden affairs, and decades‑old resentments that show the victim was far more complicated, and resented, than their charming image suggested.

Defying Cozy Expectations

So, I didn’t name the victim in my little plot summary of Voted Most Likely To Murder because I want the whole story to be as much fun for you as it was for me.

What I really liked is how the book dodges the usual cozy mystery defaults while still giving me everything I want from the genre.

There’s no sunshine‑perfect heroine who breezes through clues without breaking a sweat; Belinda is competent and nosy, but also messy, sarcastic, and carrying some very human baggage from her past.

The mystery itself also swerves away from the most obvious answers. The “jealous spouse” idea is on the table, but the story doesn’t just plonk that down as the solution and call it a day.

I also appreciated that the book is very deliberate about how the amateur sleuthing works. Belinda, Stevie, and Jolene set “rules” for their investigation – no breaking the law (in theory), no wild accusations, and always telling each other where they’re going, which is a fun, self‑aware nod to all the times cozy sleuths do the exact opposite in other books.

They also talk normally to each other – and you would be surprised by just how many books do not do that! I want conversations. I want funny back-and-forth wit and banter, and author Lacey Moone excels at this.

Real, Funny, Flawed Sleuthing Heroes

For me, the characters are what make this feel like the start of a series rather than just a one‑off mystery.

Belinda’s voice is dry and self‑deprecating, and she’s just impulsive enough that I believed every time she walked into something she really shouldn’t.

Her dynamic with her ex‑best‑friend Jolene is especially strong: their shared history, the miscommunications, and the long‑overdue confrontation about what actually broke them up in high school all land in a way that feels honest rather than melodramatic.

Jolene herself could easily have been a stereotype – the pageant girl turned perfect mom – but she’s not. You see how hard she works to meet everyone’s expectations, and how little space that leaves for what she wants.

Stevie, constantly juggling her tearoom job and her role as emotional referee, adds warmth and a gently chaotic energy that keeps the trio grounded.

On top of that, there’s a whole supporting cast that gives the town real texture: Belinda’s retired‑cop dad and perfectly polished mum, the local gossip network, and a certain bartender named Jinx whose scenes with Belinda add a light romantic fizz without taking over the story.

The humor is steady rather than slapstick with quick one‑liners, gently savage internal commentary, and plenty of situations where Belinda opens her mouth and absolutely the wrong thing falls out.

More Please!

​Voted Most Likely to Murder fits nicely on a cozy mystery shelf and leaves the door wide open for more Little Blue Harbour adventures.

I finished it genuinely hoping this isn’t the last time we see Belinda, Stevie, and Jolene teaming up to untangle other people’s secrets, and maybe their own as well.

It’s light, it’s funny, and it’s very aware of how ridiculous small‑town politics and old grudges can be, without ever making fun of the characters themselves.

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time beside these three women as they bicker, tease, support, and occasionally exasperate each other, all while they try to figure out who killed their former classmate and why.

Genuinely, the thing I am most disappointed about, having finished this book, is that even if I get a second instalment, it’s probably going to take a year to come out…