What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez

• Inez: Our main girl who starts in Argentina, living with her aunt. Her parents died in an adventure in Egypt. Inez decides that she is going to go to Egypt. She takes with her a mysterious ring that her father mailed her. 

• Whit: our lovely man who is quick with his words and is slowly falling for Inez. 

• Ricardo: Inez’s uncle. Who realizes she is a very determined girl and tries to send her back home. When she doesn’t, he sends Whit to babysit her. 

• Even with Whit babysitting Inez, she manages to get herself into trouble and manages to get herself onto her uncle's expedition. She is allowed to come if she promises to behave. She helps out with the artifacts that were found whenever she can. She also slowly starts falling for Whit. 

• One evening, Inez's mother shows up one night (surprise, she's not dead!) and says she's in hiding from Inez's uncle, who's selling artifacts on the black market. She has a plan to stop him and Inez wants to help; so she steals artifacts for her mom. She uses some magic to shrink the artifacts and gives them to her mom. Her mom promises that they will escape the island together. 

• Inez and Whit grow closer and kiss, but he drops the news that he's going to be married. Whit faces increasing pressure from his family to return home to continue with the marriage. He's holding out looking for a scroll that has something to do with alchemy.

• On the night of the escape, her mother leaves Inez behind and says not to look for her. Turns out her mother is the bad guy, not her uncle. She's part of an organization selling artifacts and procuring goods for them, and Inez just handed her a whole bunch of artifacts. Everyone's mad at Inez for what she's done; especially her uncle. 

• A letter from her aunt tells Inez her cousin Elvira has gone missing. They head back to Cairo, but Elvira shows up at the hotel, having come to look for Inez; Elvira shows Inez a note from Inez's father before he went missing. Her father knows the truth about her mother and is not in league with her. He tells Inez not to stop looking for him (so he's still missing but not necessarily dead); 

• Whit has decided to leave Egypt but helps Inez's uncle ask around after her mother's movements. He goes to see someone involved in the illegal auctions, and things go bad, Whit shoots the other guy. 

• Elvira is abducted. Another message from Inez's mother says they are after Inez but her mother sacrifices Elvira instead and tells Inez to leave immediately. 

• Inez goes to rescue Elvira and Whit goes after her. They both get captured. The people holding them want to know where Inez's mother is and decide to kill them all when Inez doesn't know; They're rescued by Inez's uncle but chased down by her mother's associates, whom she double-crossed. Elvira is killed in the confrontation and her uncle is injured, but they manage to get away. 

• Back in Cairo, Inez vows to find her mother and make her pay, but her uncle wants her to go home and threatens to cut her off (he's in control of her inheritance) if she doesn't leave. Defeated, Inez prepares to go home but is stopped by Whit. He asks her to marry him (which would give her control of her money). 

• In the epilogue, Whit's brother is heading to Egypt with a telegram from Whit saying "Inez fell for it." He says something about Whit keeping his word and time to collect