Spotlight & Giveaway: You Can Tell Me by Melinda Leigh

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Melinda Leigh’s new release: You Can Tell Me

Thanks so much for featuring the first book in my new series, YOU CAN TELL ME

Crime writer Olivia Cruz is drawn into the dark secrets of a missing friend in a terrifying novel of suspense by #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

On the three-year anniversary of true crime writer Olivia Cruz’s horrific kidnapping, she’s scheduled to walk her podcaster friend Zoe March through the crime scene, but Zoe fails to show. Olivia knows Zoe would never stand her up―not today.

Zoe’s husband, who claims she never came home the night before, has reported her missing. But marital conflicts make the police suspect she has left him. Olivia thinks otherwise. The police aren’t looking for Zoe, so Olivia begins her own investigation. Retracing her friend’s last steps, she finds Zoe’s phone and a text with one chilling word: Run.

It soon becomes apparent that Zoe has been keeping secrets, and with her true crime podcast, there’s no telling what she has unearthed. To find her, Olivia must dig into her friend’s past. Did Zoe vanish to escape a killer, and is Olivia walking into a deadly trap?

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from You Can Tell Me 

Chapter 7 Excerpt from YOU CAN TELL ME by Melinda Leigh, text copyright © 2026 by Melinda Leigh, Published by Montlake (601 words)
Olivia followed the GPS directions for the next ninety minutes while Nicki interrogated her about Zoe’s disappearance. By the time they were approaching the dot on the screen, it was nearly five o’clock. Zoe had been missing for seventeen hours. Neither Officer Billings nor Wendy had returned her calls, and Olivia knew firsthand what could happen in that length of time. She pushed back at the memories. They wouldn’t help her find Zoe.
“I see no signs of life,” Nicki commented from the passenger seat.
The landscape had grown more and more rural, lots of trees and fields. They hadn’t seen a building for a while.
“How accurate is the last known location?” Olivia asked.
Nicki pointed to the car’s screen. “Just because this is the last known location doesn’t mean the phone is here now. It means the phone was last used here. As to the accuracy of the ping . . .” She shrugged. “It depends. In more populated areas, GPS in general is fairly accurate. Out here”—she waved a hand to indicate their surroundings—“who knows?”
“Right,” Olivia said.
Nicki frowned at her phone, which was plugged into the car and commanding the GPS. “Cell service has been spotty for the last fifteen or twenty miles, so the area might be larger than we’d like.”
Great.
Olivia watched the remaining distance countdown and slowed the vehicle. Nicki’s GPS used a woman’s voice with an Australian accent as it said, “You have reached your destination.”
Olivia pulled over. They stepped out of the vehicle and stood on the shoulder of the road. There was nothing in sight but forest. She retrieved her hiking boots from the back of her vehicle and changed her footwear. “Shall we look?”
“With good connectivity, the GPS can be accurate within a couple of square yards, so let’s give it a try.” Nicki stared at her phone screen. “We should be organized about this.”
“Let’s walk a grid pattern.” Olivia gestured in an east-west direction to parallel the direction of the road. Then she began walking, slowly, eyes on the ground. “Watch where you step. If Zoe tossed her phone out the Jeep window, it would be close to the road. If it’s deep in the woods, buried under dead leaves, we’ll never find it.”
Nicki followed. Their footsteps crunched in dry foliage.
After thirty minutes of searching, Olivia stopped. “We don’t know if the phone is here, so this feels pointless, like searching a haystack we’re not sure contains a needle. We might have to come back with a metal detector. Or the police can search the area with a K-9.” Though Olivia wasn’t looking forward to an awkward conversation about why she was conducting her own investigation. Also, she wasn’t sure they would bother to search for Zoe’s phone. They weren’t convinced anything bad had happened to her.
But as Nicki would say, Whatever. Olivia wasn’t giving up. From her true crime research, she knew the police were limited in what they could do to track a missing adult with no evidence that a crime had been committed. Their resources were finite, and an adult was free to leave their spouse if they chose. The police couldn’t proceed on their personal knowledge of the missing person, but Olivia could. She would keep looking for Zoe the same way Lincoln hadn’t given up on her. Olivia’s stomach clenched and her lungs tightened at the thought of Zoe being held captive. Was she cold? Thirsty? What horrible things could already have been done to her?
Stop! You don’t know that she was taken.

Excerpt. ©Melinda Leigh. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: A print book giveaway -YOU CAN TELL ME by Melinda Leigh to US and Canada only

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Meet the Author:

Melinda Leigh is the #1 Amazon Charts and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Echo Road, the She Can series, the Midnight series, the Scarlet Falls series, the Morgan Dane series, the Bree Taggert series, the Olivia Cruz series, and numerous short stories, as well as the Rogue series novellas and the Widow’s Island series novellas. Melinda has garnered numerous writing awards, earned two RITA nominations, and been an International Thriller Award nominee for Best First Novel. She also holds a second-degree black belt in Kenpo karate and has taught women’s self-defense. Melinda lives in a messy house with her family and a small herd of rescue pets. For more information, visit www.melindaleigh.com.

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