Rules For Hearts by Sara Ryan

I have to admit that I wished the sequel is about Nic instead of Battle, but Sara Ryan's writing in Rules For Hearts is much stronger, and I liked the story enough that it didn't matter in the end.

In Empress I learned that Battle's older brother, Nick, ran away from home. A year later, he contacted Battle and she planned to stay with him for awhile at the Forest House, a co-op inhabited by mostly theatre folk. Battle soon becomes involved with their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and develops a crush on Meryl, one of her roommates at Forest House. While Empress focuses on the romance, Rules for Hearts has Battle in a different situation, trying to make a new connection with the brother she was once close to, and finding out that he wasn't the person she thought he was.

Like in Empress, even the minor characters are very interesting, and are people I'd like to meet in real life. (Yes. Even Nick.) This story really is about family - both the family related by blood (like Battle and Nick), and the family you make yourself (like the Forest House members). It makes me think that the Weetzie Bat reference in Empress quite appropiate - this is something that I'd definitely recommend to fans of the Weetzie Bat books.