Cross Her Heart

Cross Her Heart is the first book in Melinda Leigh’s Bree Taggert series, the romantic suspense and procedural mystery franchise launched in 2020 alongside her other ongoing series. Bree Taggert is a Philadelphia homicide detective whose life is upended when her younger sister is murdered in upstate New York. Bree returns to the Scarlet Falls area of New York where she grew up to investigate the case, take custody of her sister’s two young children, and figure out how to balance the demands of her career with the new responsibilities that the family tragedy has imposed on her.

The novel introduces the wider Bree Taggert cast that the rest of the series would develop. Matt Flynn, the former sheriff’s deputy whose own complicated history in Scarlet Falls makes him both an asset and a complication to Bree’s investigation. Bree’s sister’s children Luke and Kayla, whose grief and trauma require Bree to develop the kind of family caretaking skills that her professional life has not prepared her for. And the wider Scarlet Falls community, with its long memory and its specific local politics that affect how the investigation can proceed.

Melinda Leigh handles the family material with the same care she brings to the procedural plot. Bree’s transition from career focused homicide detective to suddenly responsible for two grieving children is rendered with realistic difficulty, and the emotional beats land because Leigh takes her characters’ interior lives seriously. The romance with Matt develops slowly across the page count, with the practical demands of the case and of Bree’s new family situation taking precedence over any easy romantic resolution.

Melinda Leigh’s strength as a romantic suspense writer is the consistent quality of her plotting. Her female leads are usually capable women in difficult situations rather than damsels in distress. Her male leads are competent and respectful in ways that do not undercut the actual threat the antagonist poses. And her resolutions tend to feel earned because the obstacles she sets up are genuine ones that have to be addressed rather than waved away.

For longtime Melinda Leigh readers, Cross Her Heart is the foundation of one of her strongest ongoing series. For new readers, this is the natural entry point into the Bree Taggert books and a strong introduction to Leigh’s work. Readers who enjoy Karen Rose, Allison Brennan, or the romantic suspense end of Catherine Coulter’s catalogue will find familiar territory here.