Aspen Brooks is back in all her designer glory and nose for criminal mayhem. This time, the setting is glamorous Las Vegas for a Spring Break trip with her boyfriend, Rand, and friends, Angel and Lucas.

Aspen is immediately traumatized by the loss of her luggage and spends much of the trip making do with Angel's clothes or cheap purchased things. For someone who considers a Dooney bag the must-have accessory -- and thank goodness she didn't check that! -- it does not mean a great start to the trip. Then, a beauty pageant is occupying their hotel and it turns out that Lucas knows one of the contestants, Emerson. Other than tweaking Angel's jealous bone, the chance meeting doesn't mean much.

Until Emerson disappears. Her distraught mother swears Emerson would never run off, because she's trying to win the contest to help her family save their farm. Unable to leave anything alone, Aspen noses into the situation and ends up taking Emerson's place in the contest.

Like the previous Aspen Brooks novels, you start off shocked at her shallowness (the drama over the lost luggage almost equaled that of a lost child -- okay, maybe a lost pet) and end up rooting for her all the way. While I do struggle on a personal level with teen fiction that emphasizes looks and high-dollar items like Dooney purses, I know it is fun to read about, and Hale does an excellent job of combining those light-hearted topics with more serious issues.