Her father failed in his mission to take control from the Commander, a defeat that has cost Jade her life. She will die as punishment. Now she belongs to the Commander’s son — as his wife. Knowing his intent is to quietly kill her in revenge, Jade’s every move is calculated to survive — until she learns her death ensures the safety of her father and her entire town.
Roan doesn’t want to kill Jade, but once his family isolates her from her father and community, his only choice is to go through with the plan. Jade doesn’t make it easy as she tries to sway him into falling for her. Each misstep makes him question his cause. Each moment makes every decision harder, but the Commander won’t allow him to fail.
One chooses life. One chooses death. In the midst of the chaos, only one will succeed.
K.M. Robinson is a storyteller who creates new worlds both in her writing and in her fine arts conceptual photography. She is a marketing, branding and social media strategy educator who is recognized at first sight by her very long hair. She is a creative who focuses on photography, videography, couture dress making, and writing to express the stories she needs to tell. She almost always has a camera within reach.
There are very few authors who manage to capture me with their words, who truly wreck my emotions to the point of no return, and K.M Robinson is definitely one of them.
As soon as you read the first sentence, you know you're going to be in trouble. First we have Jade, a young woman who spent the majority of her life preparing for the moment of her demise aka an arranged marriage. She knows her path has already been chosen, yet she still fights for her future. Then there's Roan, a young man who knows he must follow his father's order, yet as he spends time with Jade, he realizes that maybe his father wasn't right after all.
The characters develop beautifully, there's something for everyone (action, romance, friendship...even butterflies and we all know butterflies are cool) and the plot will leave you with your mouth hanging open and your heart destroyed. Can't wait to read the next book!
The premise is that 18 yo Jade has been promised to the Commander's Son following a failed rebellion by her father. Her life is now in danger as the Commander has plans to kill Jade and make it look like an accident to punish her father.
COVER: The cover was interesting but honestly I didn't feel it brought anything to the book. I didn't recognise it as a scene from the book and I didn't think it worked well, personally.
Also there are chapter header images which looked like they were made very quickly on a basic graphics package. They did not look good and the one connected to Jade's chapters, I'm still not sure how it represented her.
CHARACTERS: The book is a dual POV moving between Jade and Roan. I like dual POVs as you get a nice flavour from both main characters. I thought the development of each of the characters as they progressed through the story was good and their dynamic was great. You really felt they were growing and changing as situations occurred.
The other characters such as Mr. Eoh, the Commander, Alice, Lucas etc were also done well and I actually think I really liked Alice's character and her complete disdain for Jade and she didn't care who saw.
PACING: Pacing was pretty good, slower at the beginning but it built up nicely as the situations became more dire. It did keep me reading and I ended up reading late into the night to finish it.
STORY: I loved the story idea, especially as we see both Jade and Roan's side of the story and see how they tackle their prospective duties differently. Jade is trying to figure out how to survive while Roan is dealing with the conflict of killing an innocent girl in hopes of punishing someone else.
FORMAT: The formatting on the ebook was a little messy in places such as the drop cap at the start of each chapter. Often the letter was too low and not aligned with the top line and then several lines below were all affected. Also, some of the chapter headers were off-centre.
OVERALL: I really liked this book, these characters were easy to like and the plot moved along well. I enjoyed feeling the connection between Jade and Roan and how they reacted to the other characters. It really showed good layering with their personalities and I'm looking forward to reading book 2 of this duology.
I'm not really a fan of dystopia, not sure why I continue to try them. We pick up at the wedding of Jade & Roan. This is an arranged marriage to get Jade into the public light in order to kill her for sins of her father. Turns out her father is a rebel but it's actually Roan's father that is the monster. While this is touted as a dystopian Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I read it more like Killers instead. I saw a lot more similarities between Killers than the Smiths. Although, yes, both Jade & Roan were trained to protect themselves and kill the other, you never see that action in print. Just strategically placed poison bottles. They were both playing each other and ended up falling in love. Now, Roan can't let Jade die and Jade is determined "to get it over with" already. I would classify this as a clean YA dystopian enemy to lover book. While both Jade & Roan are around their 20s, the books reads a bit more like a middle-school to high-school drama. With this in mind, I'm not the intended demographic. But I just LOVE KMs promotional videos on IG! She's full of spunk and energy and it comes through in her writing. I can totally see KM as Jade! Give it a try...it might be a perfect fit for you or someone you know. Clean read; some action; lots of poison and attempted murder, mildly graphic with stab wounds not gory at all, some steamy romance, nothing over G rated. Cliffhanger!
I loved this book. The Game Between Roan And Jade of life or death was so much fun to read. If you want to read a book about Survival and Death, this is the book for you! It's almost like hunger games meets Divergent, but with the two characters and no one else. I read this book within a day because I couldn't put it down!
I got this for free and procrastinating a lot to read it. Shame on me! This book is really good! Jade is a too good person, but not fragile or silly. She is strong and fair. I would like to have her as my president! Roam is the silly guy, who was trained all his life to kill somebody... It is weird at first, but with the “Roam’s point of view”, it can be reasonably believable that he can change.
Great Book I love .I think that this book is one of the most powerful book you will have to read it too see what you think I love 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘 Thank You For Letting Me Read This Book I love 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘
Amazing book! The author has you guessing the whole time and your head is spinning by the end. You fall in love with jade and learn to love roam too. Can't wait to read risen.
A fairly predictable story, elevated to a level above by having an intelligent & practical FMC with a plan that isn't derailed by hormones and writing that made me feel her emotions
All the while I read this book I thought I knew where it was heading emotionally and storywise, but I was wrong. In fact, the entire story was one emotional rollercoaster.
Jade and Roan constantly lead this clever tango as the book goes on and you're never quite sure where it is going to end, good note or a bad note? K.M. Robinson is no stranger to tormenting her readers and so it kept me holding my breath, is she going to kill someone?! MY favorite someone, or my heart's someone?!
Jaded is a character driven story and so while you don't see a vast world you do get to see these two characters grow together and of course suffer. The world and circumstance do take a toll on them and we are able to see how, why, and what comes of it all.
This is a different kind of dystopian, where the heroin doesn't charge after the corrupt government head on, instead, she allows the others to work from the outside and she is to determined to be a thorn in the side of her new husband and father in law. She knows they are going to kill her but she wants to make it the most difficult process and she does. Boy does she.
Jaded left me breathless until the last page. So if you're game for a dystopian, character driven read, shelf this!
Opinions: I loved this! To be honest, the only reason I picked this up was because I knew K.M. Robinson personally. Of course I was going to try her books! But oh my goodness. In my opinion, Jaded is a work of art. It's a simple story line turned into a world of fear, romance, drama, and much more. I love it! The only thing worth changing is the pace, but it's not so painfully slow that you can't get through it.
My Favourite Thing: Despite my sarcastic line in the Summary, "But what happens when two YA characters live together and find out they have something in common?" I enjoyed the back-and-forth of Jade and Roan. Seeing them live together and work around each other was tedious but thrilling. I know this is not the first time anybody has thought up this idea, but it's the first one I've read, so it's exciting.
My Least Favourite Thing: At times, Jaded was a little repetitive/dragged on. It wasn't boring, but some scenes lasted longer than necessary. The book is a decent length, so cutting out some of the needless monologues wouldn't make a difference.
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this book. WOW! There are just so many things to say about this book. You get to follow the story from both Jade and Roans point of views. It really helps you, as a reader to see the whole picture. That doesn't mean you ever truly know what will happen next though. There is so much manipulation going on that you don't know who to trust. Jade is such a strong character who will do anything for the people she loves, including die for them if she has to. Roan is a force to be reckoned with as well. K. M. Robinson likes to take things from real life; Like the butterfly scene that will leave you speechless. This is yet another book of hers that will leave you wanting more!
The premise of this story was interesting. Jade is forced into a political marriage to the son of a dictator as a punishment for a failed rebellion led by her father many years ago. She goes into it knowing that her enemy wants to kill her and that there’s a good chance she won’t survive. We also get the POV of her husband, Roan, who wrestles with his role in the plan to kill his new wife. Their struggle to stick to their missions and decide who they can trust is well-paced and understandable, though I could have used a little more history about the world they are in and how it got that way. It was a fun read, and I’ll be interested to know where the characters go from here.
KM Robinson can weave a tale that keeps you turning the page and swooning alongside the heroine.
The twists, turns and characters are so well done and I cannot wait to see where the second book leads. Her heroes and villains are equally wonderful and I know I'm going to love the many novels in her arsenal.
Talk about an enemies to friends to lovers book. Way to pull on my heart strings KM Robinson. I won’t lie I did cry at one point and I definitely swooned a couple of times. You absolutely have to read this book if not for me then do it for the kissing scenes, trust me you’re not going to want to miss them.
DNF 75% A messed up reverse shatter me where she's married to the commander's son who's got the personality of a lampshade so vanilla and boring and the second guy who who was waayyy more interesting will probably be relegated to friend status but was more interesting...
I loved this book! Instead of killing a politician who tries to lead a revolution against him, the dictator makes the politician agree their children will marry. Plot twists, great characters and a good story line made me want to grab the next instalment right away!
This book is not a cyoa book (I don't believe), but there's a game that goes along with it. It spans across 3 days and you can find the cyoa game on Facebook on the author's author page.