'Cinderella' already had a wicked villainess with the stepmother character, but Cinder introduces a second villain who is even more evil with Queen Levana, the power-hungry ice queen with a strong grudge against Cinder. The lab visits also bring her closer to Prince Kai, who keeps a close watch on the studies in the hopes that he can find a cure for his father and the rest of his people. However, this unexpected opportunity allows her to discover more about herself and the true nature of her birth family than she ever thought possible. Cinder is horrified and does everything in her power to try to escape since being a test subject means certain death. Cinder's stepmother responds to this by volunteering Cinder against her will as a guinea pig for scientists to find a cure. The story begins with Cinder's younger stepsister catching Letumosis, the deadly virus that had spread throughout the kingdom by Lunar immigrants. Most of the book is devoted to the disease plaguing their land and how it affects everything from Cinder's relationship with her stepfamily to Kai's relentless devotion to protecting his kingdom. I was surprised by how little focus was placed on the romance. However, Cinder is hardly just a futuristic love story.

You can probably tell where this is going. He hopes to get out of the alliance by finding the lost princess of the Lunar Kingdom, Selene, and forging an alliance with her instead.

She has several chance encounters with Prince Kai, who is in a marriage alliance with the wicked Queen Levana, an alien from the Lunar Kingdom with mind control powers. Cinder is a cyborg working as a mechanic in the dystopian city of New Beijing.

Cinder series books