What do you get when you have a missing person, a romance about to ignite, a road trip away from home, and all of the signs of bad news all around? You have Lynn Weingarten’s Wherever Nina Lies.

Nina’s been gone for two years, but that doesn’t stop Ellie from thinking about her. One day she was there, and the next she was gone. Nina, a free-spirited artist, just up and left her home and was never heard from again.

Their mom said to let it be, that Nina was long gone. Amanda, Ellie’s best friend, told her to let it go, too. She couldn’t let her life stop because Nina was never coming back.

But when Ellie discovers a mysterious note in a box at Amanda’s work — one featuring one of Nina’s trademark drawings — she knows she needs to get to the root of what happened to her sister.

When her path leads her to Mothership, a local artist colony of sorts, Ellie meets Sean and tells him her story of loss. It took no time for Sean to propose a road trip to follow the clues and find Nina. You better believe there is some budding romance here, too.

Wherever Nina Lies was a book I found myself wanting to keep reading until it was finished. I thought the mystery was quite predictable, but I thought that Weingarten’s integration of the clues and development of subplots within the greater problem of the whodunit makes this title stand out. I really liked Ellie as a character, and I thought she was developed perfectly as a high school girl. She was no fancy sleuth and her reason for seeking her sister was compelling enough to drive the pace of the story forward. Though there are a lot of elements, they never bogged down the pace.

This is far from the perfect book, however. I found that the secondary characters — particularly the mother and Amanda — to be flat and empty. The believability of Ellie being able to take off for a few days on a road trip without her mother ever questioning was ludicrous, even if it was explained early on as normal that Ellie spent so much time away from home at Amanda’s. Given the disappearance of one daughter, it just didn’t work for me. Likewise, I felt that both characters were too easy to dismiss Ellie’s feelings about Nina’s disappearance; while we find that mom comes around in the end, it seems the relationship between Ellie and Amanda is never reconciled. For being described as inseparable for the bulk of the novel, this just didn’t jive.

As a non-mystery reader, I found Wherever Nina Lies to be a fun read. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it and because there was enough else going on plot wise, I could dig into the romance (though I won’t blow it for those who haven’t read it, this ends up not being perfect either), the road trip, the quest for life and excitement, and the dropping of clues throughout in the form of drawings. This will be an appealing book to mystery and non-mystery readers alike, and it makes for a good readalike to Ally Carter’s “Gallagher Girls” series for an older audience. Because it’s a little more violent and includes harsh language as well as situations with drugs and alcohol, it’s not a clean read, so I’d hold this one off for older readers.

Quite honestly, what appealed to me about this book was that it felt like the sorts of books I read as a teen; it has “classic” teen read appeal to it. It doesn’t try to be an issue book nor does it try to impart a message or lesson. It’s a story for story’s sake. I could see this on the big screen, too, for that reason and because it incorporates so much into it plot-wise to keep it from being pigeonholed as one thing or another.

Intrigued yet? Keep your eyes here this week for your chance to win a copy.

Do you have a guilty reading pleasure? You know, you love reading a certain genre or author and probably for reasons that can induce a little blushing?

I certainly do. I LOVE Simone Elkeles’s romances for one big reason: they’re sexy.

Although I didn’t think that Perfect Chemistry was particularly well written nor had the most developed or dynamic characters, I loved the romance. I thought it was a nice one-off book, but when I heard there was going to be a sequel, I got a little overexcited about it.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Rules of Attraction tells a similar story to that of its predecessor, except instead of focusing on Alex and Brittany’s post-high school relationship in Colorado, it zooms in on the budding romance between Carols and Kiara. Carlos, you might remember, is Alex’s brother who has gotten himself into some trouble with gangs and drugs when living in Mexico with his mother. Kiara is the daughter of one of Alex’s mentors and favorite teachers. This mentor, who is referred to as The Professor throughout, actually ends up playing a huge role in Carlos’s life, as well, and Carlos adopts him as a personal mentor as well.

Elkeles writes a cross-cultural love story that is so reminiscent of West Side Story, with less singing and more sexual tension. It’s sexy; it’s compelling; and it’s entirely (older) teen appropriate. There’s just the right amount of trouble with Carlos — which explains why he’s even in Colorado with Alex — and just enough intrigue with Kiara to make her much more than his puppet. The idea of the good girl with the bad boy doesn’t feel stale in this one.

This is far from the perfect book, particularly when it came to the writing. I had a couple issues with improper Spanish, for one. It’s been a few years since I’ve taken it, but I know “usted es estupido” is improper when Carlos is speaking to his brother (page 246). There was another example of improper Spanish, too, when Carlos first meets Kiara at Flatiron High (the strange use of some Italian – il – in one of his sentences). Hopefully, these sorts of issues will be hammered out by the final printing.

Likewise, I don’t think the character development is particularly memorable, and I actually was sad we didn’t get more of Alex and Brittany. There are attempts at creating some threads throughout, including the “Rules of Attraction” and Kiara’s car skills, but they never become fully fleshed and thus, they almost seem silly to include at all. It felt like they were there to do something, but they never came to be more than extra furniture in the story.

What Rules of Attraction has going for it is pulse. It is a quick moving read with everything you want in a good love story: questioning, following the heart, denying oneself, then ultimately having a satisfactory conclusion. Oh, and the gorgeous cover is entirely fitting to the story, too. There is indeed some kissing in the rain.

Reading and loving books like this sometimes embarrasses me, if for no reason other than knowing the characters are quite a bit younger than me. I think Elkeles would have a fantastic market in the older young adult sector (your 20-somethings) if she were to expand outside teen books. Where many adult romances fall into carrying too much baggage, these books manage to avoid the baggage issue and maintain a real sense of innocence, exploration, and trepidation to them. Sure, it’s a standard story trope, but she has a real pulse to her writing that has enough grittiness and enough innocence that just works for me.

Rules of Attraction will be available April 13 from Bloomsbury Teens. I sincerely hope this isn’t the last book in this series, as there is still another Fuentes brother who can find his true love, too.

But back to my original question — are there any books you find are your dirty reading secrets? Share them in the comments.
Of course, I’d also love to know if you’re as much a secret fan of Simone Elkeles’s romances as I am.