Dirty Little Secrets by Julie Leto

I'm really very, very happy that this book made it into my shopping cart at BN. I'd heard buzz on it, but I wasn't really sure if it was my thing. I'm happy to say that my decision to buy it paid off. This is one great book! Julie Leto may have started out as a category author, but I didn't think that showed in here at all. Just good writing and fabulous characters.

Book blurb:

When Marisela Morales sets out to stop her ex-boyfriend, Francisco Vega, from skipping out on bail, she has a secret agenda: revenge. She hasn’t seen Frankie in ten years, and back then, he broke her heart by choosing his gang over his girl. So when she tracks him down to their old haunt, a hot dance club in Tampa, she sets about seducing him into her trap.

Frankie has a secret agenda, too, and Marisela soon faces a tough choice: continue drifting through her twenty-something life--hitting the same town with the same girlfriends every weekend while struggling to find a job and pay the rent--or dive headfirst into danger with her ex. Frankie operates in a treacherous underworld full of arms dealers, assassins and sinister agendas--a world overrun with people keeping dirty little secrets--and only Marisela has the cojones to fight her way to the truth.

Sexy, sultry and action-packed, Dirty Little Secrets is a thrilling adventure in manhunting of the most dangerous kind.

I loved the characters here. They aren't all good or all bad. Marisela has made some mistakes in her past, but she certainly isn't agonizing over them. She doesn't join Titan, International over some idea of savng the world, but of the chance to maybe find a place in the world where she finally fits. And if it makes her loads of money, so much the better. I liked that she was allowed to be strong, yet there are instances where she's soft, but they're definitely in character. And she can kick butt with the best of them.

Frankie Vega is also great. Leto didn't try to make us sympathetic to him by making his time in prison some big misunderstanding or have him have had some kind of epiphany where he plans to go the straight and narrow for the rest of his life. Nope, he's unapologetic for his actions, though he realizes he probably didn't make the best choices. They've shaped who he is now, and without them, he certainly wouldn't be where he is.

I also liked how it has a decidedly Latin flavor, but we're not beat over the head with it. There's just enough stuff thrown in to make it feel real, not forced.

So...basically I really like this book. It's fresh and exciting and I really can't wait for the sequel Dirty Little Lies next year. I'll definitely be buying it as soon as I can.

There's a website about the book and series that you can find here. It gives more info about things. I'm feeling lazy today, so just figured I'd mention a little about why I liked it.

Dirty Little Secrets by Julie Leto - buy it! Or check it out from the library. Anyways, read it.