In lots of trilogies, the first book is marked by an attempt at escape – the Uglies trilogy does it. While I normally hate cliffhangers, and will knock stars of a book for it, this ending wasn’t even a cliffhanger, but more of a stark cut which appears designed to frustrate the reader. Instead, it cuts off right before what should have been the end-point of the first book.

I could have put up with all that, and still given the book a fairly decent rating, if it at least had had some kind of ending. The boy makes her feel like nobody else ever has before, and they definitely, absolutely fall in true love.īlah blah blah. She’s given an opportunity to reach a higher status than before, which she’s not entirely sure she wants. She has powers beyond that which even she would have expected. The Jewel is author Amy Ewing’s debut, and while it was easy to read, and the prose flowed well, it was stuffed with the tired kind of tropes that I’ve seen a hundred times in the last few years, especially in the dystopian-type novels which are so prevalent on my bookshelf. Other than that, though, I’d struggle to find something to praise in this book. At least it read quickly – maybe three hours from cover to cover. That’s about the best praise I can sum up for The Jewel. I had it finished by the time I was halfway from the airport on the other side (but it was only a one hour flight). I picked this book up to read in the airport today as I waited for a flight. The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Other Boleyn Girl in a world where beauty and brutality collide. She fights to hold on to her own identity and sanity, uncertain of the fate of her friends, isolated and at the mercy of the Duchess. Violet is trapped in a living death, her name and body no longer her own. Her sole purpose is to produce a healthy heir for the Duchess – a woman Violet fears and despises.

Sold for six million diamantes, Violet is now Surrogate of the House of the Lake in the centre of the Lone City, the Jewel. The Jewel is a shocking and compelling new YA series from debut author, Amy Ewing. Not by the cover art, which remains, frankly, the best thing about the book.

I knew it was part of a series (called The Lone City), but still, I was ready and excited for The Jewel. The blurb reads like a cross between The Selection and the Handmaid’s Tale (which I haven’t read, but let’s say bumped/thumped, since I have read them), with gorgeous, truly gorgeous cover art, and the potential to be a stark and searing portrayal of girls’ bodies used as commodities in exchange for riches and pretty dresses.

Amy ewing the jewel series