Scarlet

Meyer, Marissa. Scarlet. 2013. 452p. ISBN 978-0-312-64296-9. Book 2 of the Lunar Chronicles. Available both as a book at FIC MEY on the library shelves and as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Scarlet’s grandmother disappeared three weeks ago, and Scarlet is willing to do anything to find her. The police have ruled it a voluntary disappearance, but her ID chip and her port monitor were both left behind. A farmer by trade, Scarlet has been living with her grandmother since her dad abandoned her six years ago. During one of her deliveries, she meets Wolf, a foreign fighter in an underground network of fighting bouts. She quickly discovers that Wolf knows more than he lets on about what happened to her grandmother.

Meanwhile, Cinder manages to escape from the Eastern Commonwealth’s prison with Thorne, a petty criminal and former member of the American Republic military who happens to own a stolen transport ship. She had been imprisoned there after she had tried to assassinate Queen Levana of Lunar. Her escape provides the excuse Queen Levana needed to launch her war against Earth.

Scarlet is connected to Cinder through her grandmother, who served as a pilot in the European Federation and who spent some time on Lunar forty years ago. When it came time to rescue Princess Selene from the Moon, Michelle Benoît was the one who hid her and nursed her back to life in a secret facility underneath her barn.

As both Cinder and Scarlet are desperately seeking Scarlet’s grandmother, Wolf may be playing his own game. Who is he really, and why does he display such wolfish tendencies? Meanwhile, Emperor Kai finds himself cornered as the war starts and must make a momentous decision: fight Levana, or marry her.

As the two worlds collide, Cinder, Scarlet, and Kai risk becoming the victims of something that is spinning out of control.

This series continues in Cress.