#22 Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

After reading the first book in this series I couldn't wait for the next book. This one is a riff on Little Red Riding Hood much like Cinder had its roots based in Cinderella. The story introduces Scarlet desperate to find her missing grandmother after the police have discontinued the search. Once that stage is set the POV switches back to Cinder as she is breaking out of jail before she can be turned over to the Lunars.  The two separate story lines do merge before the book ends but there is no final resolution to the story by the end of the book since of course there are now at least two planned sequels.

#23 The Taken by Vicki Pettersson

I liked the idea the author presents in the book about angels. What I didn't care for was all the tell and not show on the rockabilly side of the heroine's life. And as much as she talked about the lifestyle other than the dress up I wasn't sure what drove her to aggressively live in that time frame to the point of tracking down old brands of cigarettes to smoke.  The villain is really evil and he does almost everything except twirl his mustache since he is so secure that he will never be caught. I'll read the next one since I liked how the book ended with the angel side but the heroine side was a bit weak.