Say You're Sorry is Book One in the Melinda Leigh's new Morgan Dane series. This story kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Even though it was very light on the romance, it was very engaging and I look forward to reading more about the romance that is slowly starting to kindle between Morgan and Lance.

While the story is a bit dark in spots, it certainly wasn't overly graphic. Even though there were no loose ends with the main story line, there are definitely some other directions the author seems to be taking that I expect will continue throughout the series. I cannot wait to see how it all unfolds.

An ARC copy of the book was received via NetGalley.

Say You're Sorry is the first book in the new series, Morgan Dane by Melinda Leigh. I have been a long-time fan of Ms. Leigh, having read everything she's ever written. We really are a great match, her writing and my reading and this latest effort is a perfect match. I loved the Morgan Dane character and also her side-kick Lance Kruger. I think they make the perfect pair and will bring us many great stories. Can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Many thanks to Montlake, NetGalley and Ms. Leigh for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am always excited to read a new Melinda Leigh book, and Say You're Sorry was no exception. This was an exciting and thrilling read that kept me guessing all the way to the end to find out who the killer was. Even though Melinda's books are always hard to put down, this one kept me on my toes from beginning to end. Kudos on a terrific read! I look forward to Morgan's second book!!!

What a highly entertaining, fast-paced, gripping read Ms. Leigh has penned in this book, encompassing well-written dialogue that kept me enthralled from start to finish; a plot with lots of twists and turns that kept surprising me and had me determined to discover what would come next; and two main characters that were determined to do what was right in seeking justice for the victim no matter how dangerous things became. The way this story started had me on the edge-of-my seat and drew me into the story immediately with what was happening, as it's palpable that any number of people could be a suspect. What would happen to whoever was in trouble? Would they be saved?

As for the dialogue, it was told from several characters points-of-view and was intense due to the main characters back stories and all that they go through to prove Morgan's client is innocent. Going head-to-head with several secondary characters that are either extremely dangerous or very influential in the community should concern Morgan, but no matter what threats or scrutiny she faces, she remains loyal to her job and strong and brave in her determination to seek the truth when everyone is determined to prosecute her client just so their jobs are secure. But what I liked most about Morgan is that she didn't back down, especially when things became more and more dangerous for her, Lance and her client.

While Lance, he's been through a lot in past months with having to give up working as a cop. It wasn't easy, but he's overcome it to become a very good private investigator. Moreover, I liked that he was willing to help Morgan, even though he wasn't as certain as the heroine was about her client's innocence. Yet, what I liked most of all about the hero was how protective he was of the heroine and how they wouldn't give up until they discovered the truth.

Overall, Ms. Leigh has delivered an incredible read in this book where the suspense and growing relationship between Lance and Morgan made this story a real page turner. The way this story ended was a tad alarming because of the situation Morgan finds herself in, but I liked that Morgan was finally able to move on from her past and the death of her husband. And lastly, I'm looking forward to more of this series because of the main and secondary characters, especially Lance's mom, a bright woman with a serious medical condition that makes Lance continually worry about her; and Sharp, Lance's boss and a man that is determined to make everyone a health nut. The moments where he was trying to convince Morgan what was good for her had me amused. I would highly recommend Say You're Sorry by Melinda Leigh, if you enjoy romantic suspense or books by authors Kendra Elliot, Mary Burton, Rita Herron or Nancy Bush.

This whole story begins with a bang as we start out in the viewpoint of a young woman who is running through the woods trying to escape her attacker. She fails.

Tessa's body is found by Morgan Dane and Lance Kruger who begin searching when Tessa's grandmother calls her. Tessa is a widow with three young girls under the age of seven who is just getting ready to go back to work in the Prosecutor's office. She gets side tracked when her neighbor Nick Zabrowski gets arrested for the crime. Morgan can't believe that a young man who plays chess with her grandfather, reads stories to her girls, and is just starting his own landscaping business could be guilty of the crime.

She decides that she is going to take his case as his defense attorney and find out who really killed Tessa despite Nick being convicted by the court of public opinion and a mayor and police chief who want to railroad him so that they can benefit from the good publicity resulting from putting a killer behind bars.

Morgan recruits Lance to help her investigate. They had a thing when they were teens but life got in the way and they have just been friends since Morgan got back to town. Lance is a former police officer who was shot and is still rehabbing. Meanwhile, he is working with Lincoln Sharp who is a retired police officer who has started a private investigation business. Sharp has also been a mentor and father figure to Lance since his own father disappeared when he was ten and his mother spiraled into mental illness. Lance still has major responsibilities to his mother who needs his care.

The mystery was intriguing. The multiple viewpoints, including that of the killer, make the story tense. Lance and Morgan have a number of suspects who all seem to be possible killers. Even so, the identity of the killer came as a surprise to me.

This is a great romantic suspense title with plenty of suspense and a nice romance too.

I pretty much have read everything by Melinda Leigh. So it won't come as much of a shock that I jumped at the chance to get an advance copy of her lasted series Morgan Dane Say Your Sorry.

Melinda Leigh as the ability to create characters that readers connect with from the leads in the story to a child even a grandfather. Each characters has a purpose and and reason for being in the story.
The story starts off with a murder that will take readers ride of who is the real killer and a romance of two characters so real they feel like friends.
The story moves along to a good pace never slowing down but giving readers time to recover from one chapter to the next.
Melinda Leigh is an wonderful Mystery Romantic Suspense author with her ability to have readers connect to the characters, the town and the people who surrounded them. The Lance is able to give readers a male figure who is someone you could meet walking down the street and Morgan is the mom next door who you want to me friends with.

I am excited to see where the author has these two headed in the future.

Thank you to the author, publishing company and Netgalley for the advance copy.

Love, Love, Love her books! She never disappoints!

The first two chapters of this novel were utterly gripping. The author immediately caught my attention with that suspenseful and frightening opening sequence. Needless to say, I was quite excited to read the rest of the novel. Unfortunately, by chapter three, the novel transitioned to the kind of average mystery story that I have read many, many times.

The story is told through multiple perspectives. By far, the strongest perspective was from the unnamed murderer who was compelling and, at times, even sympathetic for a villain. This perspective was intentionally cryptic in order to keep the identity of the murderer hidden from the reader until the final reveal.

The writing started out strong with vivid descriptions in those initial chapters. However, later on, the writing became weaker. Specifically, the writing was repetitive, as the author reused the same phrases too often.

The characters were fairly decent and interesting. The female lead defense attorney sometimes acted as a strong, independant woman and other times became emotionally fragile. My main complaint stems from my dislike of romance in mystery novels. There was too much emotional elements in the story for my personal reading tastes. I felt that the romance diluted the suspense and atmosphere of the story.

The mystery itself was decent with several potential leads. The main investigation was conducted from the perspective of the defense attorney and private investigator, which provided a break from the traditional police perspective. The ending was not particularly obvious and fairly satisfying.

Personally, I prefer reading darker, less emotional mysteries. However, I would recommend this novel to readers who enjoy mysteries with a healthy serving of clean romance.

I (accidentally) requested from Netgalley and decided to read this anyways out of respect for the publisher & author.

I think if you haven't bought this book, you should. If you haven't read Melinda Leigh, well lucky you, there are several waiting to be devoured. This is the start of a new series. I enjoyed the heroine. I love that there is usually an animal somewhere in her books, such a relate able point. She brings up some hefty subjects, with a classy touch. Thank you Melinda and thank you Netgalley.

Melinda Leigh does a wonderful job of bringing you romance, and mystery. You will be trying to guess the real killer up to the last horrifying moments. After losing her husband in Iraq it's taken Morgan Dane two years to come out of the fog she existed in. Morgan agrees to defend her teenage neighbor who is accused of murdering his girlfriend. Lance, a Private Investagater works with her to prove to the town Nick, a boy who reads stories to her daughters and plays chess with her father, couldn't possibly be a cold blooded rapist and murderer. . As they Work together to find the real killer of her teenage babysitter, Morgan and Lance struggle with feelings that are more than just working colleagues. He's afraid of pushing to much and she's afraid to feel but there is no denying their attraction. Searching for the real killer puts them both in danger and makes her very unpopular with the towns people. Excellent read with many twists and turns!
Thanks Melinda for another hit. Every book you write is better than the one before.

I confess that I am an avid Melinda Leigh fangirl: I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all of her work, which is why I was surprised to be so thoroughly underwhelmed by SAY YOU’RE SORRY, the first book in the Morgan Dane spinoff of the Scarlet Falls series. It’s not that the book is bad per se-- it’s not; the plot has enough twists to keep you turning pages to uncover the villain-- it’s just that it’s ho-hum at best and, IMHO, not as engaging as any of her other work. Part of it is probably due to the need to lay down all the groundwork for a new series, but SAY YOU’RE SORRY was very heavy on the exposition, with much more had tell than show, and I didn’t get emotionally invested in either heroine Morgan Dane or hero Lance Kruger (who has so much potential to be a great book boyfriend, just the right side of alpha) or their relationship. Reserving judgement on this new series until the next book, which will hopefully deliver the edge-of-your-seat, tautly-paced suspense I’ve come to expect from Ms. Leigh’s work.

Melinda has done it again. Her characters are so vivid and become part of the family. Morgan Dane I am anxious to read more about in the future. The book kept me guessing until the very end.

I LOVE Melinda Leigh!!! If you haven't read any of her books, you are truly missing out.

If you've read any of my reviews, than you know that I will not go into any details because I feel that's unfair to you. You deserve to take this journey on your own.

I will say the story keeps you turning the pages. The plot is great with many a twist and turn, some you may see coming, but others you will not. I love when I think I know who done it, than BAM I'm proved wrong.

If you looking for HOT sex than move on, but if you want a great book with awesome characters, a couple of murders, a couple of WOW moments, with lots of twists and turns, than you NEED this book.

I will be stalking Melinda waiting for the next book in this series.

Every time I read a book by Melinda Leigh I'm never disappointed, and that didn't change with this book! I fell in love with the characters and was guessing all through the book! I felt like I knew the characters personally and I'm gutted it had to end, I couldn't put it down. It was exciting and I can't wait for the next one! Well done once again Melinda

I just finished “Say You’re Sorry” and I’m so excited! This story and these characters are exactly the right mix of drama, intelligence and strength. And as for the suspense? WOW! I am never disappointed when I read this author. Melinda Leigh is able to weave a tale of suspense that constantly challenges you to rethink the bad guy. Just when you are 100% sure you’ve figured it out, another twist is layered in so expertly that you’re now utterly unsure who did it. That, my friend, is how to write suspense. But the best thing? This is just Book 1!! I highly recommend this book and this author. I cannot wait to read more!

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.

I have been to Scarlet Falls before, but this new book brings in new characters- and I loved it!

A cunning master of suspense, Melinda Leigh knows how to ratchet up the tension and has a deft hand with plot twists. Unlike many authors whose characters are one dimensional beings that you cannot relate to, Leigh's characters are fully drawn, likeable (or unlikable, as the case may be) people that you can imagine having day to day interactions with. Dialogue flows easily, with no stilted prose to wade through. And her story line is always clean, even through the twists and turns it takes as the plot unfolds.

Morgan Dane is an Iraq war widow, left with three small children to care for. After moving home to the comfort of her family to heal, after two years she has come to the realization that she needs to spread her wings and go back to work. A job offer with the local District attorney's office seems to be the ideal fit. That is until her babysitter is murdered and a family friend is accused of the crime. Sensing that the young man is being railroaded for a political win, Morgan decides to change sides and become his defender. She calls upon an old friend, Lance Kruger, a former SFPD officer to help her dig into the murder. Missing witnesses and a hostile police captain hinder them in their search for the truth, but they are determined that the true murderer be revealed and an innocent man set free...before anyone else dies.

A worthy addition to the Melinda Leigh suspense family. I cannot wait for book 2 in this series.

Another great read by Melinda Leigh. There is nothing this author has written that wasn't truly great. This is the first book in the Morgan Dane series and it was perfect. Lots of suspense, little romance and just a great page turner. Recommend reading anything by this author and this book is included...you will love it!

I've been reading a lot of suspense novels lately and here is one I really liked. The story was interesting with just enough twists and the characters were great. Definitely hoping that Morgan and Lance will be recurring characters.

I enjoyed this first book in the Morgan Dane series. It is full of twists, deception and secrets. The author draws you into the story and keeps you guessing to the very end; it is a thrilling, suspenseful read. I liked that Morgan was a strong character, using her intelligence to solve things but still having a softer side too. She and Lance compliment one another, they work well as a team and I will enjoy reading more stories contains these two characters. It is great how the author is expanding the world of Scarlet Falls by giving different characters their own spin off stories. This adds depth to the world and is an unusual and refreshing find, as most murder mystery books usually concentrate on only one or two main characters and keep secondary charters as minor players. It is a suspenseful entertaining story and I look forward to reading the next in the series. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion or my review.