Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

My review of Cinder can be found here.

Spoilers for Cinder follow
In the first installment of the Lunar Chronicles, we met Cinder. She is part cyborg, and as it turned out, a Lunar. Actually, Cinder is the presumed dead Princess Selene, rightful heir of the throne until her aunt tried to kill her. Because of the extensive injuries from the fire, Cinder ended up a cyborg with a metal leg and hand. After the eventful ball in the first book, Cinder ended up in jail. Prince Kai felt betrayed upon learning the truth about Cinder, but he still pretty much loves her. The only problem is that a treaty with the Lunars makes it so that any unauthorized immigrants must be executed. Cinder is locked away in jail until then.

Meanwhile, a girl named Scarlet is worried about her grandmother. Michelle Benoit has been missing for two weeks, and the French police have given up searching. Scarlet's deadbeat father shows up and tells her how strange men kidnapped him. They tortured them to get grandma to talk, but she never did. Now, he is tearing the farmhouse apart to find whatever it is that the men were seeking. All he knows is that the men had strange tattoos on their arms, tattoos like the one on Scarlet's new friend Wolf.

Cinder escapes from jail, taking along an arrogant and funny captain named Thorne. They commandeer his stolen airship, and they are off to find the truth behind Princess Selene's origins, from a woman named Michelle Benoit (Sound familiar?). It's awesome that Cinder puts Iko's personality chip in the ship (Iko was the family's android, she was awesome and boy crazy and wore lipstick because she wanted to be human; the mother had her dismantled to punish Cinder and it was heartbreaking), so we get both her and Thorne for some humor.

In yet another storyline, Kai has to deal with Queen Levana. She is threatening to attack the earth unless Cinder is found and executed. We don't hear a whole lot from him, mostly how he doesn't really hate Cinder. His job sounds really stressful, and I feel great sympathy for what he has to do at the end of the book. Poor Kai.

Cinder and Scarlet do eventually meet, and they're most likely going to meet more fairy tale characters in books three and four. The rest of the story is Scarlet figuring out whether or not she can trust the mysterious Wolf (Yes, and no, but also yes- it's complicated), and Cinder coming to terms with being Lunar. She has powers to manipulate people, but she's afraid of hurting people like her aunt does. I still really like Cinder. In the last book, she was fitted with a fancy new hand that has a screwdriver and darts, so she is extra-tough for fighting. I'm ultra-excited to see her fight back for her throne in the next book, though I do wish we got to see more of that here. The story was still awesome and action packed. My only problem now is the lo-o-ong wait until the next book comes out!