Cress

Cress is a young adult science fiction novel by the American writer Marissa Meyer, published by Macmillan through Feiwel and Friends in 2014. It is the third novel in her Lunar Chronicles, the sequel to Scarlet, and it takes up a character who had appeared only as a voice in the previous books.

Cress is a programmer who has been kept in orbit for years, doing the queen's work and communicating with the crew resisting her. When Cress is rescued, the escape fails and the group is scattered, so much of the novel is separated characters trying to reach one another before the queen's plans are completed. The series retells fairy tales as science fiction, and this volume takes on Rapunzel, with the tower replaced by a satellite.

Meyer writes the books as a linked sequence with a large cast, and each volume adds a new central character while continuing the same plot. It was followed by Winter, and the earlier heroines remain part of the story rather than leaving it.