The Rules for Disappearing by Ashley Elston (review)

For months Meg’s family has been on the run, yanked from one safe house and shuttled to another on a moment’s notice. Meg’s had about all she can take—from her series of bogus identities (“Meg” being the most recent), to her mother’s retreat into a bottle, to her younger sister’s social withdrawal, to her own lack of friends and any semblance of normalcy. Stuck now in Natchitoches, Louisiana, Meg is determined not to get close to anyone, but her intentions dissolve under the advances of Ethan Landry, who resolves to break through her defenses. He rightly suspects something is amiss in Meg’s family, but she couldn’t give him any information about their circumstances even if she wanted to, because her father stubbornly refuses to say how they landed in Witness Protection. Eventually Meg’s drunken mother lets slip that it was Meg who got them all into this situation, and as Meg tries to reclaim her repressed memories, pieces begin to fall into place and she takes off for her old neighborhood in Phoenix to ferret out hidden evidence that could get her family off the hook. Of course, Ethan is right by her side from road trip to break-in, and if the chills of the chase aren’t compelling enough, the steamy-but-chaste romance should push this over the edge. Though the last-minute twist Elston sneaks into the tale is a little contrived, it doesn’t matter; it’s enough that readers can project right into the damsel-in-distress role and trust that a farm boy knight in a borrowed 1970 Mustang will come riding to the rescue.