Say You're Sorry

Say You're Sorry is the first book in Melinda Leigh's Morgan Dane series, the romantic suspense and legal thriller franchise launched in 2017. The novel introduces Morgan Dane, a former prosecutor who has returned to her small upstate New York hometown of Scarlet Falls to raise her three young daughters after the death of her husband John in Iraq. Her partner in the series, both professionally and increasingly personally, is the private investigator Lance Kruger.

The central case involves the murder of a young woman whose family has hired Morgan to defend the man the police have arrested. Morgan is rebuilding her legal career as a criminal defense attorney after the years of grief that followed John's death, and the case forces her to engage with the kind of difficult professional and emotional territory that the wider series will continue to develop.

Melinda Leigh handles the family material with the same care she brings to the procedural plot. Morgan's transition from career focused homicide prosecutor to suddenly responsible single mother of three is rendered with realistic difficulty, and the romance with Lance develops slowly across the page count.

For longtime Melinda Leigh readers, Say You're Sorry is the foundation of one of her strongest ongoing series. For new readers, this is the natural entry point into the Morgan Dane books.