RePost Review: ‘Seconds to Live’ by Melinda Leigh
Seconds to Live
by Melinda LeighSeries: Scarlet Falls #3
Published by Montlake Romance on June 28th 2016
SubGenres: Romantic Suspense
Format: eBook
Pages: 335
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Audience: 18+/Adult
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Wildlife biologist Mac Barrett avoided his hometown of Scarlet Falls for years—too many bad memories. But when he receives the news that his father is dying, he rushes home only to discover he’s too late. Shaken, Mac retreats to his remote cabin seeking peace and solace. Instead, he crashes his jeep to narrowly avoid running over the naked body of a woman lying in the road. Even more disturbing, when he regains consciousness, the body is gone.
Police detective Stella Dane wants to believe Mac, even if his story about the vanishing body seems far-fetched. But when Mac’s description matches the missing woman she’s been searching for, it raises a disturbing question: How does a dead body disappear?
Mac and Stella will have to work together to find the answer and catch a psychotic kidnapper—and quickly. The killer has a deadly message to send, and the case is about to become personal.…
Seconds to Live is the final installment in Melinda Leigh’s Scarlet Falls Series. This is Mac Barrett’s book, the youngest Barrett family member, and I was happy to reread his book for the second time. I read it back in 2016 when it was published.
Storyline: Mac Barrett hasn’t been back to Scarlet Falls in a long time, especially due to his traumatic past. His work keeps him away, but he returns home after he gets word that his father, the Colonel, isn’t doing so well and will possibly pass away soon. He’s been injured anyway due to what happened in South America, but right as he returns home, his father passes away before he can probably say his goodbyes. Mac doesn’t realize also that he’s about to stumble into Scarlet Falls, which is dealing with a killer on the loose. One woman was found dead, and Mac may have stumbled across the other woman who had gone missing. He’s going to team up with the FMC, Stella Dane, one of the police detectives on the case, to find out what is happening in her town.
My Thoughts: I loved Mac and Stella together, especially during my reread. They both were determined to find and capture the killer in Scarlet Falls. Mac may have been a civilian, but he had skills that Stella could use to look for the women who were being kidnapped.
I’ve always loved how Melinda writes her FMCs because they tend to be kickbutt heroines who can hold their own. Stella was one of those characters. She not only was dealing with her detective job, but she was having to be pushed into the media spotlight, which she didn’t like. I admired her character, especially with what she endured in Minutes to Kill and how she was dealing with it.
Don’t even get me started with Mac because he was different from his siblings. He was a reformed bad boy who was proving to everyone he had changed, even admitting what his job entailed that he had been keeping hidden from his siblings. I learned how the Colonel and his father treated him since he was the youngest compared to the other siblings, Grant, Hannah, and even Lee. Mac was a fighter, too, and I really enjoyed reading his story and how he found love with Stella through the tough times that happened in this book. They weren’t looking for anyone but ended up finding each other, and they truly needed each other.
What I loved most about Seconds to Live was how Melinda Leigh kept me guessing who the killer could be because I had no clue, not even when she gave me the killer’s POV. I wasn’t expecting how Melinda was going to have the ending go, either. Melinda definitely knows how to keep this reader on her toes with the suspenseful and action-packed storyline.
I’m glad I reread the Scarlet Falls series because it remains one of my favorite series from Melinda Leigh. She writes the most unforgettable characters, and I loved each of the Barrett family members and their significant others. Once again, this book gets five stars, and I wish I could give it more.
Would I recommend this book? Yes. I highly recommend this book/series to Romantic Suspense readers.
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About Melinda Leigh
#1 Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author Melinda Leigh is a fully recovered banker who learned that writing books is way more fun than analyzing financial statements. Melinda’s debut novel, SHE CAN RUN, was nominated for Best First Novel by the International Thriller Writers. Since then, she has garnered numerous writing accolades, including two RITA® Award nominations and an induction into the NJ Romance Writers Hall of Fame. Her novels have sold more than 7.5 million copies across the world. Melinda loves martial arts, rescue dogs, and sea turtles.
My obsession with reading started over 30+ years ago when I went to my first Scholastic Book Fair and found R.L. Stine's Fear Street series. Later, I came across Anne Rice's novels at my public library when I was fourteen when my obsession with vampires started. I was the girl who preferred to be a vampire over a princess any day. My husband says I would leave him a heartbeat for a vampire that looked like Spike or Angel (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries. (It's true, though, and he's accepted it.)
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