Book Review | The Jewel by Amy Ewing

 

Format: e-ARC

Source: Publisher via Edelweiss

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: September 2, 2014
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

 

 

 

The Jewel means wealth. The Jewel means beauty. The Jewel means royalty. But for girls like Violet, the Jewel means servitude. Not just any kind of servitude. Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty—because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring.

Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel’s glittering facade: the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.

Violet must accept the ugly realities of her existence... and try to stay alive. But then a forbidden romance erupts between Violet and a handsome gentleman hired as a companion to the Duchess’s petulant niece. Though his presence makes life in the Jewel a bit brighter, the consequences of their illicit relationship will cost them both more than they bargained for.  

 

 

 

My Thoughts:

 

 

I have to admit that I was expecting to be blown away by this book. I mean, look at that gorgeous cover, surely the book will be just as amazing, right? Well, not necessarily. I enjoyed The Jewel, there were a lot of the elements that I liked but in the end it wasn’t everything that I was hoping for.

Violet was a strong MC, I can’t imagine going through everything that she has, with being taken away from her family, forced to carry someone else’s child, and come out on the other side intact. I’m usually a sucker for romances, but I wasn’t too fond of the one in this book. First, it felt too rushed, second, I didn’t really care all that much for the love interest.

The plot was interesting, although I didn’t feel like I got everything that I needed from the world building. I still don’t know how everything in this world came to be. There was a fleeting explanation of why the royalty couldn’t have their own children but that was pretty much it. There was no other explanation on how the surrogates came to be or even the Augury for that matter.

Even through the lack of world building, I was really enjoying this book until the whole romance thing came into play. Like I said above it was way to insta-love-ish for me. I think this book would have been a whole lot stronger without that aspect.

Now, that ending, that was a killer that I really wasn’t expecting. I’m excited to see where this series will go and I hope that some of my lingering world building questions will be answered in time.