Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: Cross Her Heart (Bree Taggert Book 1)

Top positive review

My new favourite character

Reviewed in Australia on 2 September 2021

Ladybug is quite possibly the best supporting character ever. Now I’ve got that out of the way, all the other characters in Cross Her Heart are pretty outstanding, too. With Melinda Leigh each book series just gets better than the last and the bar is extremely high.

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Fergie51

Shame

Reviewed in Australia on 15 June 2022

I cannot wrap my head around the frivolous ownership and lack of control of guns in America and when I began reading this it sent chills down my spine. Pulled out at less than halfway, this book just sells the concept that violence and shooting is acceptable. More social responsibility is needed.

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Kay

Good start

Reviewed in Australia on 8 January 2022

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Good characters. Storyline with a few twists to it. Animals in a story always works for me. Looking forward to reading more in this series. The subtle relationship between Matt and Bree was a nice change.

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Good start to a new series

Reviewed in Australia on 11 April 2020

I received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.

Cross Her Heart is the first book in a new series following Detective Bree Taggert. The prologue for this story is pretty confronting. We are with 8 year old Bree as she calls 911 while her parents fight which ends in tragedy. Fast forward 25 years and Bree is again facing tragedy when her little sister is murdered.

Bree travels to her home town to track down her sister's killer, arrange a funeral and determinate who will raise her niece and nephew. She teams up with former local cop Matt to track down her sister's missing husband and get justice. There are various suspects and dangerous situations that had me holding my breath. I didn't guess who did it which I liked. When the killer is revealed we get a scary action packed showdown which is all to real in this day and age.

This story is really well crafted. It has a good mix of crime solving and personal drama and gives us possibilities for the future that left me wanting to read the next book to see where Bree's life will go next. I can see things between Matt and Bree are going to build slowly and I can't wait so see their relationship grow.

Wicked Reads Review Team

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Five stars for a fantastic read!

Reviewed in Australia on 22 March 2020

The course of Bree Taggert's life was set the night her father murdered her mother while Bree tried desperately to protect her younger siblings. A Philly homicide detective, she spends her life hunting down men like her father and finding justice for their victims.

Now Bree's sister has been murdered, and she has to go back to the small town where she grew up to take care of her niece and nephew… and find justice for her sister. Her brother in law is missing, accused of the murder, but Bree can't shake the sense that there's more to the crime… particularly since Matt, former K9 handler and best friend of the missing man, is also looking into the case.

Bree and Matt make a fantastic team, and this is an absolutely stellar start to a new series. Bree has her flaws, but she's an incredibly strong character who it's easy to empathize with, and I was delighted to see she got her just rewards at the end of the book in the form of a job offer that suited her talents. A romance with Matt wasn't more than hinted at, but she was in no emotional condition for one and the ending leaves things open for them as a couple.

I honestly can't think of the last time I was so excited to read the second book in a series. This is genuinely excellent and I can't wait to see what's next for Bree, Matt and the found family they're gathering around them. Five stars for a fantastic read!

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.

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From other countries

Tracy

Great read !

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 October 2021

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What a fantastic start to a new series, loved all the characters especially Dana the kids the dogs and of course Bree and Matt can’t wait to read more of this series !

Neelabh Pratap Singh

Half police procedural, half family drama

Reviewed in India on 29 April 2022

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Having read Morgan Dane and Widow's Island, I've a fair idea about how Melinda Leigh goes about her story. The chapters alternate between solving the mystery and dealing with the personal life of the protagonist which is affected by the murder. Though the personal life/family drama part didn't really contribute much to the overall and so I end up skimming through those chapters. The mystery unfold slowly where the protagonists Bree Taggert and Matt investigate each suspect. The climax wasn't something shocking which you expect in crime thrillers, probably because it was a romantic suspense. Will try next book after some time.

M A Martin

In my opinion, Melinda Leigh has written many 5-star books but this one is really, really good

Reviewed in the United States on 22 March 2020

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This is one very good thriller - I highly recommend it.

It’s always good to start a book series with the first book. To do so provides you with the history of the main characters. Cross Her Heart provides a thorough description of what Philadelphia Police Department Homicide Detective Bree Taggert and former Sheriff’s deputy Matt Flynn have been through.

After Bree collars a criminal she has chased down, she listens to a voice mail message from her sister, Erin, in which Erin sounds like she is scared and says she is in trouble asking for Bree’s help. Bree immediately arranges for time off to go to Grey’s Hollow, New York, where she was born and where her sister Erin, and her brother Adam, still live.

Before Bree can get there, Matt Flynn, a former Sheriff’s deputy and K9 officer, who was shot in the line of duty, as a result of which can no longer pass a firearms test because of the damage done to his dominate hand from a “friendly fire” bullet, arrives at the house where his long-time friend Justin Moore, lives. Because of an injury received in an automobile accident, Justin has become addicted to OxyContin.

Erin did not want drugs in the house where her children lived and so she asked him to move out. He was now attending NA meetings and, since he was not allowed to drive, Matt picked him up and took him to meetings. When Matt and Brody, his former K9 partner and now his personal pet, arrived to pick Justin up, Brody alerted Matt to the fact that something was not right. When Matt finally entered the house he found Erin in Justin’s bedroom floor dead from a gunshot wound with Justin nowhere to be found.

Bree arrived at Erin’s house to find two deputies searching it. Upon their advice, she went to the Sheriff’s office to learn where her sister was and why her house was being searched. The acting Sheriff, Chief Deputy Todd Harvey, advised her that her sister had been shot and killed and her nephew and niece were with their Uncle Adam. The previous Sheriff had been found guilty of corruption and had committed suicide and it seemed as though no one wanted the job.

Realizing that both the individual who found the body and the individual who knew the victim best were experienced police officers, Todd asked both of them to steer clear of the investigation since they were too close to it. Since Bree knew of Matt’s history as a deputy sheriff, she wanted to talk to him about the situation.

Upon leaving the Sheriff’s office, Matt found Bree waiting for him. She asked to talk to him in private so he took her to his house. Unfortunately, because of an incident that happened when she was a child, Bree was terribly afraid of dogs and Brody was a large German Shepherd who looked a lot meaner than he was. Recognizing this, Matt sent Brody to his cage.

Matt and Bree agreed that it seemed certain Todd had already made up his mind that Justin had killed Erin. Matt assured Bree that he did not believe Justin was the killer. They also agreed they did not have confidence in the ability of the Sheriff’s office to find out who killed Erin. They decided to join forces and “work the case” together.

Then, of course, there is the matter of the secondary characters, Luke and Kayla, Erin’s children, Adam, Bree’s and Erin’s artist brother, Dana, Bree’s partner in Philadelphia, Craig, the children’s biological father, to whom Erin was never married and who is not named on their birth certificates, and Marge, who is the woman who “runs” the sheriff’s office from the receptionist’s desk.

All of these secondary characters have important roles and you will find them very interesting. So, by all means, read this book.

47 people found this helpful

Jessica Madden

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United States on 29 May 2020

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I was a little disappointed in this. I've really enjoyed the previous books I've read by Leigh, and I had high hopes for this one. But to me this "mystery" was incredibly obvious. As soon as the bad guy had a scene with Bree it was clear to me. I suppose when the mystery is obvious, but your main character is clueless, its hard not to see them as being at least somewhat incompetent. The only reason it was sort of acceptable is because of the grief she was going through. It was also disappointing that the ending was inevitable. While the POV of the killer insinuated Bree was going to stuff things up, it really had zero to do with Bree. Their entire investigation was just a wild goose chase meant to stretch out the book. That ending was always going to happen. A person in that frame of mind was always going to snap. When they were commended on their investigating skills I had to scoff. They got everything wrong/didn't add much to the overall case. The clue that lead them to the killer was there all along. And even then they focused on the wrong person. Add in a custody subplot which is a personal pet peeve of mine, and I found my mind drifting with this one. I hope the second one in this series will be smoother and the mystery less easy to solve. In terms of the romance, there was none. Having said that, there was also no chemistry between Bree and Matt. He doesn't really even need to feature in another book. But I'm sure he will. I didn't appreciate how pushy he was when it came to the dog thing. Bree has a legitimate fear and because he's not afraid, he pushed. It felt annoying and gross that he thought he knew better than Bree about her own mind. He forced her hand since he knew the kids would fall for that dog. He wasn't even apologetic about it.

Overall this is my least favourite book by Leigh. However, the narrator on the audible version was good, and it'd make for a good distraction if you're looking for an afternoon read. If you have liked her previous works then you'll likely like this one. There are many similarities. Dead sibling and kids needing to be looked after resulting in a move back to a hometown and career change (Hour of Need), the name Brody (Minutes to Kill), Dana is clearly the new version of Grandpa (Morgan Dane series), ex-cop shot in the line of duty (Lance from the Morgan Dane series) and I'm sure there are more, but you get the point.

33 people found this helpful

Chitown Reader

Good set-up for the books to come

Reviewed in the United States on 19 March 2020

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Cross Her Heart introduces us to Bree, a Philadelphia detective, and Matt, a former detective in Bree's hometown of Grey's Hollow. Bree left Grey's Hollow as a child after a traumatic event left Bree, her sister Erin and their baby brother Adam parentless. It reminds me very much of Say You're Sorry, the first book in the Morgan Dane series. It lays a foundation for the characters and offers a good mystery. The downer for me in this book is the same with Say You're Sorry, and that is the lack of emotional connection between Matt and Bree. I know that element will come in future books and I look forward to it.

Pluses: good mystery that kept me guessing until late in the book when I was able to figure it out before the big reveal; depth of character development for Bree, her siblings and Matt; good background on Grey's Hollow; likeable characters who are not perfect but are good people. 4.5-stars and well worth the read.

36 people found this helpful

GrandmaHeather

Family Dynamics Plus Crimes

Reviewed in the United States on 28 March 2020

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I was really looking forward to this new series by Melinda Leigh, and I was not disappointed. Bree Taggert is a homicide detective who protected her younger sister and brother from her father when she was only eight years old. I really like the way the book starts out with that night. When Bree misses a call from her sister, Erin, and then can’t reach her, she knows something is really wrong.
Bree makes the decision to go back to Grey’s Hollow to find and help her sister. There are interesting family dynamics, Matt Flynn and his German Shepherd, Brody, Dana Romano (homicide detective) and some surprises. Looking forward to the next one!

16 people found this helpful

Sue's Reviews

I found no romance and very little suspense in this silly story. One bored star.

Reviewed in the United States on 26 January 2021

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The blurb and glowing reviews sucked me in, but now I wish I hadn't wasted my time and money on this silly story. Romantic suspense? Hardly! I found no romance or emotional connection between the hero and heroine. Suspense? Forget it! I slogged through thirty tedious chapters (84% of the book) before anything remotely exciting happened, when the plot took a nosedive into an insane, far-fetched confrontation with a killer.

Okay. Here's a bit of the plot. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!) When our heroine--homicide detective Bree Taggert--learns that her sister (Erin) has been murdered, she vows to find the killer. Enter our hero--former cop Matt Flynn--who teams up with Bree to solve the murder mystery. Who killed Erin, and why? The list of suspects includes Erin's estranged husband (Justin), Erin's ex boyfriend (Craig), Erin's stalker (Trey), Justin's drug dealer (Nico); Erin's boss (Jack), Erin's best friend (Steph), and Steph's husband (Zack).

The plot crawls along as Bree and Matt search for clues and meet with the various suspects (except for Justin, who's missing). When Bree isn't with Matt, she's busy planning Erin's funeral and spending time with her sister's grieving kids (Luke and Kayla). We also learn more than we needed to know about Bree's irrational fear of dogs; she was bitten as a child. Matt and Bree gradually form a friendship, but I sensed no real chemistry between them.

Anyway, their search finally comes to a head when the armed killer--driven completely mad with jealousy--enters a beauty salon and shoots wildly at anyone in sight, causing a fire that sets off fire alarms and sprinklers. This far-fetched scene consumes forty pages before Bree and Matt manage to save the day.

Who's the crazy perpetrator? I'm not saying, but it comes as no big surprise in this boring, predictable plot. Unfortunately, I bought the next book in the series before I read this one--thanks to those glowing reviews--and now it's too late for a refund. I realize I'm in the minority, but I can't give this book more than one star. I only hope the next one is better.

7 people found this helpful

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