Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)

by Marissa Meyer

They took away her beautiful clothes, dressed her in an old gray smock, and gave her wooden shoes.

She was met with startled copper-brown eyes and black hair that hung past his ears and lips that every girl in the country had admired a thousand times.

Lunars were a society that had evolved from an Earthen moon colony centuries ago, but they weren’t human anymore. People said Lunars could alter a person’s brain—make you see things you shouldn’t see, feel things you shouldn’t feel, do things you didn’t want to do. Their unnatural power had made them a greedy and violent race, and Queen Levana was the worst of all of them.

“I’m not sure I would label it a ‘survivor,’” said Iko, her sensor darkening with disgust. “It looks more like a rotting pumpkin.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel much more grateful when I find a guy who thinks complex wiring in a girl is a turn-on.”

“Miss Linh, from your blood samples I have deduced that you are, in fact, Lunar.”

“Maybe her programming was overwhelmed by Prince Kai’s uncanny hotness.”

“No,” said Kai, allowing a cold smile. “Eventually, I’ll have an empress for that.”

But if there was one thing she knew from years as a mechanic, it was that some stains never came out.