In case you've been living under a rock (or in a fortified bunker stuffed with canned food and zombie-fighting gear), let me tell you a little about The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.  This genre-bending series (dystopian + sci fi + fairy tale retelling) stars Linh Cinder, a 16-year-old cyborg who lives with her stepmother and stepsisters in the bustling metropolis of New Beijing.  As a robot/human mix, she's an outcast who (according to her adoptive family) is only useful for her mechanical skills.  With few friends, a deadly plague threatening the city's human citizens and an alien queen hovering above Earth just waiting for her chance to enslave whatever's left of the planet's population, Cinder doesn't have a lot to get excited about.  Except running away.  Then, Prince Kai stops by her stall in the marketplace and everything changes.  For the first time, Cinder feels seen.  And valued.  Suddenly, she has a purpose, one she could never have imagined.  So begins Cinder's desperate quest to save her planet, her future, and the only man she's ever loved ...
Now for the good stuff ...

-- I mentioned fun, new characters in Scarlet.  One of my favorite is Carswell Thorne.  To introduce the engaging Mr. Thorne, here's what Marissa Meyer herself has to say:



Trust me, the man's a charmer!  You're going to love him and the rest of Scarlet's cast.

-- If you want to give the books a try before buying them (although after reading a little bit of the story, you're going to need the whole thing, trust me), you can download the first five chapters of both Cinder and Scarlet to your e-reader for free by using the following links:

Cinder: http://goo.gl/XqLWG
Scarlet: http://goo.gl/S2Bcs

(P.S.  If you do decide to pre-order Scarlet—and you should!— you can send in your receipt to get a free Scarlet-branded lip gloss using this link.)

-- If you—like me—can't get enough of The Lunar Chronicles and want more, more, more, you can download the following short stories for just .99 each:

Glitches (a prequel; the story of Cinder's adoption):  http://goo.gl/ggtcJ
The Queen's Army (the story of a soldier in the army of the lunar queen):  http://goo.gl/bmX4z

-- And, now, the most exciting news of all:  You can win yourself a paperback copy of Cinder, thanks to the generous folks at Macmillan.  All you have to do is use the handy-dandy Rafflecopter form below (please note: this is my first time using Rafflecopter, so if something's screwy, let me know).  The contest ends on January 31.  It's open to readers with U.S. and Canadian addresses only.  Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway