As an adult reader, I find YA reads are either a hit or a miss. There never seems to be an in between. I found "Stars and Smoke" by Marie Lu to be a definite hit! The characters are believable, the plot intriguing with lots of twists and turns, and the settings are well described. The storyline follows the lives of Winter Young, a world-wide superstar and Sydney Cossette, a nineteen-year-old agent working for an elite organization. Winter is recruited to join Sydney in taking down the notorious crime boss, Eli Morrison. At first, Sydney and Winter are at odds. The plot quickly changes as both realize that there is more to each other's backgrounds than they were originally led to believe. As they maneuver through spying on Eli and his associates, they quickly realize that all is not what it appears to be. I love when a novel has a surprise ending, and this one certainly did. An excerpt of the next novel in this series, "Icon and Inferno", is included at the end of this book. I love that it's set up as a stand-alone novel. It looks intriguing and another novel by Ms. Lu that I'm looking forward to reading.