The Lone City #2 The White Rose

Presenting The Lone City #2 The White Rose by Amy Ewing.

                                                       
                                                         Here is the summary of the book:

Violet is on the run. After the Duchess of the Lake catches Violet with Ash, the hired companion at the Palace of the Lake, Violet has no choice but to escape the Jewel or face certain death. So along with Ash and her best friend, Raven, Violet runs away from her unbearable life of servitude.

But no one said leaving the Jewel would be easy. As they make their way through the circles of the Lone City, Regimentals track their every move, and the trio barely manages to make it out unscathed and into the safe haven they were promised—a mysterious house in the Farm.

But there’s a rebellion brewing, and Violet has found herself in the middle of it. Alongside a new ally, Violet discovers her Auguries are much more powerful than she ever imagined. But is she strong enough to rise up against the Jewel and everything she has ever known?

The White Rose is a raw, captivating sequel to The Jewel that fans won’t be able to put down until the final shocking moments.

Begins after the cliffhanger ending of The Jewel. The White Rose successfully proclaims a better sequel. Sporting an excitingly captivating next leg of the series, tensioned to the seams. Violet, Ash, Raven, fearing retribution and in danger to losing their lives leave The Jewel under cover of the darkness and make way to the Farm. Meeting new allies, uncovering malevolent intent and the history of the auguries. There is a revolution afoot and 'The White Rose' shows us but a glimpse of this oncoming venture.

Amy Ewing introduced us to her surrogates and just how different and important to her story they are but still we raised eyebrows at the way she laid out her tale in 'The Jewel'. 'The White Rose' on the whole serves us a better and an evolving sequel. The history of the city is laid bare, the mysteries of the auguries explained and the characters showing newer mature thinking. The characters are given more room to breathe and flourish and the romance takes a back seat on this trip with plenty of surprises to keep things afloat.

There is a marked sense of maturity in Lot 197, who us readers better know as Violet. Tackling each of the moment of danger with surprising resilience and alacrity. The consequences of a revolution, there is no guarantee their plans will succeed and they would attain their desired liberation. Decisions have been made and sides have been chosen. Violet and crew definitely don't want to go back under the thumb of the cruel and indifferent royalty and be chosen for death. Away from the influence of the Duchess of the Lake, Violet displays an aggressive strength in her. Much more sure of herself, she is no longer the damsel in distress and we readers like that very much.

The Jewel introduced the city to us in its exotic shades. This sequel gives it the room to breathe, gives it its purpose and the push needed to pull this story forward. Impossibly jaw - dropping endings and choices aside the books sets its sights higher with well balanced, well paced and a well entertaining sequel.

"Enticingly captivating to vivid proportions"

Genre :     Young Adult, Romance, Dystopia

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: 6th October, 2015

My Copy: publisher & edelweiss

Rate:             4/5 (Really Liked It)

Other Books in the Series(review links):

           #1 The Jewel 

Buy:           Amazon | Book Depository

The Lone City #1 The Jewel

Presenting The Lone City #1 The Jewel by Amy Ewing.

Here is the summary of the book:

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.

Adorned with a gorgeous cover and consisting of lush, vivid and descriptive plot, Amy Ewing's The Jewel, the first book in the Lone City series makes for a perfect new addition to the dystopia category. Brilliantly crafted piece, Ewing puts new meaning to the term surrogacy and the evils of society, rather high society, we don't usually observe in public.

Set in this circular city, the Lone City lies protected behind a great wall that keeps out the raging ocean waters from engulfing the city. This is a city separated into a castes and living as hierarchy demands in their pre-ordained sections. The Jewel with all of its royalty at the center, the poorest in the Marsh on the periphery and in between the farms, the Banks where the traders and the shops are and Smoke the industrial zone. Thus, somehow the royalty lacks the prowess to birth their progeny and thus the idea of surrogacy holds supreme.

By some strange happenstance what the royalty can't do, can easily be accomplished by this in the Marsh with the help of some form of magic that the girls of Marsh develop as they reach puberty. If tested positive they are taken from their homes and sold to the royalty to give birth to their progeny, never to form connections and relationships of their own and be used and discarded after they had served their purpose.

Violet Lasting is our protagonist. She had been tested as a surrogate. She has been allotted Lot 197 and she does not want this job. At all. She is a strong girl. She is very clever too and knows little by little how to deal with her master in the most opportune of moments. A streak of rebellion ever present she tries to bid her time after the Duchess of the Lake buys her. But then in comes the love interest and all of a sudden all Violet can think of is about the handsome companion, the Duchess hired for her niece and in bounces their star-crossed insta-love.

I have no problem with insta-love, a lot of time they work well with the story but here it falls short. The rapidity in which they touch new bases in their relationship in the short time they are together is rather off-putting and doesn't balance well with the story. The insta-love was so not the best part of the book.

All that aside, The Jewel is definitely one of the most brutally original book I had the chance to read. While it draws parallels with Kiera Cass's The Selection trilogy, what with the pretty dresses, the life of royalty, the caste system and such. But where the Selection focuses more on the competition to win the Prince's heart, The Jewel looks to a much more crueler world where the opulence and the shine of the royalty hides their deepest-darkest-blackest hearts and their cut throat nature.

"A vivid, lush and opulent and a much more crueler version of the Selection trilogy"

Genre :      Young Adult, Fantasy, Dystopia, Romance

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: 2nd September, 2014

My Copy: publisher and edelweiss

Rate:              4/5 (Really Liked It)

Buy:           Amazon | Book Depository