In the first of her Lunar Chronicles quartet, Cinder, Marissa Meyer introduces a world divided into five commonwealths.
Linh Cinder (16) lives in New Beijing, capital of the Eastern Commonwealth, with her stepmother, Adri, and stepsisters, Peony and Pearl. The teenager is a cyborg, meaning more than 36% of her body is artificial, but whether this is responsible for her ability to detect lies, Cinder does not know. The other mystery in her life is that she recalls nothing before her 11th birthday.
Earth is threatened by a plague, letumosis, and by the ambitions of the Lunar queen, Levana. The first impinges on Cinder early in the book and has long-term consequences.
Queen Levana and her stated ambition to marry Prince Kai, son of the Eastern Commonwealth's emperor, mean little to Cinder until she meets the prince. He brings a broken android for her to fix and Cinder is smitten. So, too, is Prince Kai, who invites her to the royal ball, where things take a nosedive for the girl.
Like many series, this first book, for teenage girls, is frustratingly incomplete, being little more than a scene-setting exercise. It can only get better.
• Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer.
