The Jewel

The Jewel by Amy Ewing follows Violet who has spent her last several years training to be a surrogate for the royalty in her society.  Royalty can't have children so poor girls are tested to see if they have certain powers to manipulate matter and if they test positive they move to a training academy.  Violet is one of the highest ranked girls of her year and is bought by one of the most powerful royals and finds herself wrapped up in a controversy she couldn't even imagine.

I have mixed feelings on this one.  In some ways it wasn't good at all, the romance was laughable and unneeded and the world building was incomplete and implausible.  Even though all of that I found myself really enjoying Violet and her story.  The plotting was fast paced and the side characters interesting and I just really wanted to know what happened next and finished it in a weekend.  Unfortunately the story had no ending and I'll have to decide if I'm willing to read another book to find out what will happen to Violet (I don't care about what happens with the romance, it was a waste of print but at least was minimal). 

Appropriateness:  There is some minimal sexual content in this book, a sex scene that's very tame.  There's also a bit of wine drinking.  It's nothing that I'd really find inappropriate for older middle school or high school aged readers but I wouldn't hand this book to readers on the bottom edge of YA (and the pregnancy plot would probably turn them off anyway).  I recommend this book to female fans of dystopian romance 13+

Review copy provided by Amazon Prime