The Jewel Review

The Jewel by Amy Ewing

“I am now officially Lot 197. Violet Lasting is gone.”

 Violet lasting isn’t special. It’s not like her unique name sake coloured eyes make her stand out or that she’s the best at the third Augury in her holding facility, I mean the best in the last couple decades, I mean the best ever.  It’s not like she’s so stunningly beautiful that’s she’s ranked 197 out of 200 or that the Electress bargained for her or that she’s brought by the Duchess of Lake, one of the four founding family who hasn’t brought a surrogate in the last 19 years . Oh wait….

Let’s introduce the main character, Violet or Lot 197 as most prefer. She’s not only clueless to her surroundings or to what is going to happen to her, she also has this bad habit of trusting way to easily, being unable to follow instructions that will save her life and having an endless supply of luck in relations to everything related to being pregnant or in her case not.

There was a lot of mystery built along with suspense and Violet seemed to be in the middle of it but of course oblivious to what was actually happening. However with the mystery built there weren’t enough answers in the book – there was no depth to what happened to Raven and what the hell is Lucian trying to do.

Then halfway through the book we get introduced to Ash, who by the way does have my pity because of his job but …… Instant Love! Let’s just say they lust over each other, form a forbidden relationship, breakup for a second (I’m not exaggerating), get together again, say their ‘I love you’, have sex and then it all crashes down at the end.

Pretty much nothing happens in this book especially after the romance is introduced.

What I did like in the story was the magic element, the history of how surrogates and how the Jewel was built, the politics between the women and all the experiments – not that I liked what was happening but more that it was interesting.

I really liked the minor characters and how they were more interesting than Violet but it would have been better if we had been told more about them.

“It seems like for every time the Jewel makes me angry or uneasy or sad, I discover something beautiful in it”

★★☆☆☆