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After the devastating loss of her husband in Iraq, Morgan Dane returns to Scarlet Falls, seeking the comfort of her hometown. Now, surrounded by family, she’s finally found peace and a promising career opportunity—until her babysitter is killed and her neighbor asks her to defend his son, Nick, who stands accused of the murder.
Tessa was the ultimate girl next door, and the community is outraged by her death. But Morgan has known Nick for years and can’t believe he’s guilty, despite the damning evidence stacked against him. She asks her friend Lance Kruger, an ex-cop turned private eye, for help. Taking on the town, the police, and a zealous DA, Morgan and Lance plunge into the investigation, determined to find the real killer. But as they uncover secrets that rock the community, they become targets for the madman hiding in plain sight.

As a huge fan of Leigh’s Scarlet Falls series, I was so thrilled to learn about this spin-off and even more excited to revisit Lance and Morgan, both of whom were said to have a brief history in Stella and Mac’s story. But Melinda Leigh is an author I can always count on for fantastic reads and ‘Say You’re Sorry’ more than lives up to this billing. But I love Leigh’s heroines and heroes for so many reasons: they use their smarts and wits and intelligence to get ahead (sometimes without even needing to fire a gun), they generally don’t have immature meltdowns that are out of character and aren’t afraid to admit their uncertainty and doubts even when cornered. The all-round maturity certainly helps.

‘Say You’re Sorry’ introduces us to Morgan Dane, a district attorney whose life was blown wide open when her husband died during his deployment, leaving her to sort herself out back home with 3 young children. But the fragility and vulnerability never quite go away no matter how much she convinces herself that the time to move on has arrived, up until a case convinces her to do what’s right rather than what’s convenient.

Leigh ratchets up the tension from the start and very much like every episode of a TV crime series, begins the show with the panicked pants of a potential victim who flees an unknown killer, who surprisingly, acts uncontrollably because of his own self-preservation instincts. But what looks like a simple teenage case of murder unearths a whole load of secrets and several twists that I didn’t see coming, which made the ride more exciting.

I liked both Morgan and Lance together, and loved their partnership which seems to bode very well for the next few books that Leigh has in mind. Morgan’s strong sense of justice appealed to me deeply, especially when it came to her determination to see a falsely-accused teenager out of jail for a crime he didn’t commit while tanking her career in the process. Lance’s solid character was as well, a perfect complement for Morgan’s. His broken dreams have left him a position where he hasn’t been able to be anything other than the police officer he once was, but there’s a sense of untouchable integrity and dignity about him that makes him quite a shining example of what a romantic hero should be.

’Say You’re Sorry’ is however, more focused on the suspense than romance, heavy with the potential of Morgan/Lance which sort of remains unfulfilled by the end of the book, but I’m hoping there’re more to come that will deepen this relationship between the both of them. I’m still vacillating between feeling a little cheated out of hot and heavy times and satisfied because justice is finally served, but as long as Leigh delivers these in the next few books, I’d be happy as a clam.