Cinder Linh has discovered her past and her true identity... but that won't keep her, or anyone else, safe from Queen Levana. 
 And the stakes somehow get even higher in "Scarlet," the second book of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. This time, Meyer is exploring a sci-fi version of the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood -- except with more genetic manipulation, secret conspiracies and a feisty redhead who lets nobody get in her way. And as she spins out a new story for the title character, she also links it together with the story of Cinder and her dangerous past. 
 Scarlet Benoit's grandmother has gone mysteriously missing, and the French police aren't particularly interested in finding an eccentric old farmer. After getting in a fight at a restaurant, she finds herself befriending a street fighter named Wolf, who is savage in the ring but strangely naive outside it. Then her feckless father appears, desperate to placate the people who kidnapped his mother -- and Scarlet realizes that Wolf may have a connection to them. 
 But Wolf manages to convince her that while he may have a tattoo similar to that of the kidnappers, he isn't with them... or at least, not any more. And since Scarlet has nobody she can depend on (her dad is a useless coward), she has to figure out what terrible secret her grandmother has been keeping all these years, and why the terrorist Pack is so determined to learn what she knows. But can she really trust Wolf, even though she's falling in love with him? 
 Meanwhile, Cinder manages to engineer her escape from prison, along with a roguish thief named Carswell Thorne (since he has a stolen spaceship she can escape on). Now she's the most-wanted criminal on the entire planet, and Levana is threatening war if she doesn't get Cinder back. 
 "Cinder" was a thoroughly clever, powerful sci-fi story, and "Scarlet" is the ideal kind of sequel -- it expands the cast, deepens the central story of Cinder, and ramps up the stakes to "interplanetary war" levels. In fact, it's not even a proper sequel so much as the second part in a much larger story, which is now free to be told now that Cinder's true identity has been confirmed. And of course, it's incorporating a new fairy tale, with hints of another yet to be told (note the name of Carswell's ship). 
 And while "Cinder" explored a futuristic Asia, "Scarlet" is more about a futuristic Europe, ruled by an uncaring government and an underworld of brutal lupine thugs. Meyer continues showing a deft hand with reimagining fairy tales by taking a few ideas (kidnapped grandmother, a "wolf") and reworking them completely, even as she reweaves the story into a new epic tale of her own creation. Her prose here is strong and swift, full of delicate detailwork (every subtle expression and motion of Wolf's seems like a clue to his true nature and background) and the odd funny moment (Iko's reaction to her new "body"). 
 And Meyer winds together the two subplots into one, and balances out Scarlet's quest with Cinder's new life as a fugitive. Fortunately neither story feels tacked on; instead, Scarlet's story slowly peels back the mystery of what happened to Cinder in the past, while still being distinctly her own. 
 Speaking of which, Scarlet is definitely a different heroine from Cinder -- a strong, feisty girl who never hesitates to take on someone who insults her grand-mere. And though she's uneasy about Wolf, the two of them have absolutely nuclear chemistry whenever they are together. Wolf is in essence her opposite -- he's an essentially gentle, rather naive boy with a spookily bestial side. And Carswell makes a good foil for Cinder, being a rather flaky, charming young rogue who has a bad habit of "borrowing" things. 
 "Scarlet" takes the story begun in "Cinder," and expands it in every way -- new characters, new discoveries about Cinder's past, and new horrors courtesy of Levana. But the battle against the Lunar queen isn't over yet.