The story is set in a futuristic new Beijing, where the various countries have re-organized to form various new empires and alliances and the moon has been colonized. The protagonist, Linh Cinder is a cyborg that operates a small mechanic’s stall at a local street market in New Beijing, and lives under the guardianship of her stepmother. Early in the book, she meets Prince Kai who requests her to fix a personal android. Cinder’s stepsister falls sick with a plague after accompanying Cinder to a junkyard to collect spare parts for a repair. In anger, Cinder’s stepmother “volunteers” Cinder for plague research. When Cinder is injected with the plague, she shows an immunity to it. Dr Erland, the plague researcher, starts to do research on Cinder’s immunity, which leads to research on Cinder’s unique physiology, her cyborg implants, and eventually to Cinder’s life prior to becoming a cyborg at the age of 11, of which Cinder has no memory.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. In Glitches, a short prequel story to Cinder, we see the results of that illness play out, and the emotional toll that takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch...

When android Mech6.0 saves the life of a handsome hardware engineer, her body is destroyed and her mechanics discover a glitch in her programming. Androids aren’t meant to develop impractical reasoning or near-emotional responses…let alone fall in love.