Waiting on Wednesday: The Jewel

Title: The Jewel
Author: Amy Ewing (Twitter)
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publish Date: September 2, 2014
Genre: YA, Dystopian
Pages: 304

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.

While I admit that the dystopian genre is really quite tiring to me these days, I can't help but be utterly captivated by the synopsis of The Jewel. Combining a story of the "haves" and "have nots" with a forbidden romance and a broken, horrible world is usually the perfect combination for me. I must say that this cover looks like a bit of a cross between The Winner's Curse and The Selection, but it also sounds like it  might just be fitting for this novel. Here's hoping that a dystopian novel can still surprise me in the best possible way! What do you think, and what are you waiting on this week?

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature from Jill at Breaking the Spine.