Seconds to Live

Seconds to Live is one of Melinda Leigh’s romantic suspense novels in her Scarlet Falls series, working in the upstate New York romantic suspense world she has been building across multiple connected ongoing series. The seconds to live premise hints at the kind of compressed time frame thriller plot that the title points to, with the central characters facing the kind of urgent threat that limits their available decision time and forces immediate action.

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.

For readers who enjoy Karen Rose, Allison Brennan, or the romantic suspense end of Catherine Coulter’s catalogue, Leigh is squarely in the same neighborhood. Seconds to Live is a comfortable entry into her catalogue.