Bartered Innocence

by Gwendoline Rose

Ten-year-old Amber grew up with Collection Day clouding her childhood just as every other labor class child. Nothing prepared her for what it actually meant to be sold to the royals. As she watches the other girls’ punishments, alarms sound, giving her the cover to run. But where can she hide? Is there any hope for freedom now that she belongs to the servant class?

Ten-year-old Prince Steel doesn’t want to take part in his first Collection Day gala. The last thing he needs is to pick a friend from a group of girls. They can’t even throw balls right or climb trees. While hiding from the festivities, he finds a playmate who is also running from the celebration. A girl. A girl who is brave enough to run away with him on the roof.

Neither understands what it means when Prince Steel picks her at the gala as his chosen playmate. Will the bonds they form as children withstand the strain of what they really are to each other as they grow into their roles?

*This story contains dark themes

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2020

About the author

Gwendoline Rose admits she’s not quite right. But who the hell wants to be? Maybe it was the steady diet of fairy tales spiked with horror. Maybe it was the cream cookies and undiagnosed autism.

Either way, she’s always rooted for the villain, questioned the happy endings, and wondered why the hell the princess would ever settle for Prince Beige.

Now she writes emotionally raw, hilariously unhinged romance for the beautifully broken, the chronically overstimulated, the neurodivergents, the survivors, the ones who feel too much and love even harder.

Diagnosed late with autism, cPTSD, and enough rare disorders to fill a bingo card, she now channels the chaos into characters who crave connection but have absolutely no idea how to do it “right.”

Her heroines are feral. Her men are emotionally constipated. And her stories don’t fade to black, they set it on fire.

If you’ve ever been told you’re too intense, too sensitive, too much… welcome home.

Reviews

[Alex Canna · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the story gets going, there’s a strong scent of the Hunger Games and the Handmaiden’s Tale, and I feared that the book would be entirely borrowed. Fortunately I was mistaken. Bartered Innocence is an original tale, very well told.

Amber wakes up to the harsh politics of her world as a young child, and through a combination of her innocence, burgeoning beauty and nascent magic powers, slowly weaves her own political spell on the powers that be. Over the course of ten or so years, we drop in on the moments that forge her destiny – and, we hope, the destiny of all around her.

The other characters are also playing their own games as hard as they can, and their roles are brilliantly portrayed, until all the forces collide. An excellent balancing act by Gwendoline Rose.

Is Amber still innocent? And what’s been bartered? Better read the book to find out.

[Franca · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting take on a dystopian world.

I love reading dystopians that are done right .
And this one ticked a lot of boxes.
In the beginning we jump right into lower class families giving up their ten year old kids to royalty to do as they please.
I had to take a startled moment and read that part again. I continued and was pulled into an intriguing story about Amber, Steel and Jet.
One is lower class and two are royalty. I’ll let you read the book to figure out who is what .
We see how this ‘selection’ process affects both classes and see the political implications that could lead to an impending crisis of epic proportions.
The world building was done just right, giving us glimpses of what led to such a terrible policy. The end was well done and left me happy plus eager to know what happens next.
I enjoyed reading this story.

[K.T. Munson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Characters

The main character is Amber. You follow her through all of her trials and tribulations. She was strong, resilient, and utterly wild at heart. Like a horse that wants to run but is caged, sure to be slaughter at the wrong provocation. Worse, she is discovering there is something dangerous about her. Something, that if found out, will spell her doom. She was absolutely relatable and vibrant. At times she felt robotic but it felt more like a defense mechanism then a character failing. Also she could be dense at times, but that may also have been about denying herself hope.

Plot

Stuck in this dystopian future that is grim for girls and boys sold on collection day. Amber is no different. As a woman she is always on that edge, saved from the impending violation. Twisted romance? Check. Abusive rulers? Check. Super big secret that is both awesome and dangerous? Check, CHECK. *internal screaming*

On another note: Amazing world building. It was an absolute treat.

Overall

Wow. Just WOW. This is a must read. I expected this to get impossibly dark, but it didn’t. I won’t say more then that. The tension in this book will make your heart pound and it started from the first second, until the last. I stayed up late reading and then finished it the next morning before work. If it wasn’t a work night I would have just kept reading, having to know the ending. Just do yourself a favor (unless Hunger Games meets Handmaid’s Tale sounds too upsetting then pass) and read this gripping novella!

Rating

5 stars

An absolute treat and my favorite so far this year by a large margin. #whereisbook2?

Where did I get a copy?

Kindle Unlimited. More reviews at creatingworldswithwords.wordpress.com.

[J.M. Rutherford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bartered Innocence is described as a “Dystopian Romance.” While romance is not my favorite genre, I enjoy Dystopian settings. So, I gave it a go and decided to keep an open mind. While I enjoyed the story, I found the Dystopian elements underplayed. I would say it leaned more toward fantasy, which I have no problem with. It was just a matter of expectation.

As far as the romance side of things, well, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that. Before I go further, I’m not saying I didn’t like the book or didn’t become interested in the characters. I did. The story pulled me in, often making me as uncomfortable as Amber herself must have been, which was really uncomfortable. Several times, I winced inwardly as I waited for the worst. Based on the premise, I had expected some disturbing content, and I think the author did a great job walking the fine line between realistic and just too far.

I won’t summarize the plot, but it progresses along with some labeled time jumps. I feel like some of them jumped too far or left out some important information. In my opinion, the reader isn’t shown enough of the friendship developing. Scenes between Amber and Steel often seemed to be rushed and could have flowed better.

I couldn’t understand why Amber didn’t despise almost every other character. Maybe there’s some Stockholm Syndrome going on here. Maybe that’s what the author intended, I can’t say. Amber seemed to have only terrible choices and outcomes ahead of her, and I felt I couldn’t root for one over the other. I spent most of the book hoping she would ditch everyone and get out.

As far as the writing itself, I ran across a few grammar/spelling issues, some of which confused me about what was happening in the scene. I would have liked more clarity on why things worked out the way they did, so the ending seemed abrupt. I realize this is Book 1, so maybe things will make more sense in Book 2. Overall, I liked the story more than I expected to, but I think it could have used some fine tuning.

[Joshua Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story!

I thoroughly enjoyed this one! The story revolves around Amber, a ten year old girl that gets sold to the ruling family to pay off a debt. Suddenly, she's thrown in the walled palace being taught obedience and other lovely lessons. She's befriended by Steel, a prince that wants a playmate and best friend, though their definition of friendship are different. As she ages, Amber has to endure plenty of beatings and humiliation as the royals have their own ideas in store for her. There's plenty of drama and several surprising twists that will keep you turning the pages just to see how it plays out! I highly recommend this one!

[A.A. Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite an uncomfortable underlying theme, this is an exquisitely-written and inspiring story. Amber, sold into slavery as a ten-year-old, gradually realises she has choices in her life - and makes the most of them. I would especially recommend this book to fans of Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood and Virginia Bergin.

[Sydnie Beaupré · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, and realistic

I found the characters to be very realistic. I could place myself in their shoes. The writing is superb, there qre only a few editing errors that can easily be fixed.

[The Book Dragon's Hoard by A.V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to commend this author for creating such an intriguing culture and for exploring the consequences of such a society to their most harrowing outcomes. It takes strength of will to really follow through with this kind of social injustice.

The characters, too, were brilliantly executed. I was totally invested in their experiences and love that Rose explores how such a society can twist human nature to show up its worst traits because of what is socially acceptable. I also like the message that innocence and honesty are able to bring out what is best in us, despite our socialization.

If you’re wondering why I give a book this good only 4 stars, it is because there is so much more potential. If it had been edited properly, Bartered Innocence would be absolutely unforgettable and could take the world by storm. As it is, riddled with grammatical errors and some truly horrific malapropisms, this book still has a way to go to achieve its true potential. I look forward to seeing this author’s talent progress. Gwendolyn Rose promises to become a fine gem.

[Loralee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story grabs the reader from the beginning. Little Amber is being sold to the royals to pay her family's debts. She finds life at the palace difficult, the difficulty only increasing as she gets older. Almost every male character is despicable and depraved, and things happen that make this book very inappropriate for children. Amber's strength through what she endures, however, is admirable.
There were a few errors, however, that I noted, that threw the story off for me in a number of places. For example, at the beginning of the book, she sees the royals for the first time, namely the queen and the oldest prince. The readers are told that only the children taken to serve them have ever seen them. But they're right in front of the houses of the families the children were taken from. And so far as I could see, there had not been any doors shutting, or anyone issuing an order for everyone to shut their doors. So I was confused why the families had never seen them, and only the children who were taken. Also, in a number of sentences misused pronouns made things confusing. Like this: "Amber let her attention drift to the reflection of her elegant back in the mirror." That sentence confused the dickens out of me, because she was dressed in a gray dress, not an elegant dress. I had to re-read that sentence over and over again, and the paragraphs around it to finally figure out that the second "her" is referring to the other woman across the room. When a pronoun is used, it should be referring to the last person mentioned, otherwise can be confusing. (An exception being when one man and one woman are talking, since the pronouns are she and he.) Had the sentence been worded differently with the elegantly dressed woman specified, then that confusion would be eliminated. Here is another sentence where a pronoun should be changed out for another: "Shrubs so thick you couldn't..." Since we're looking from Amber's pov, (the reader isn't a character in the story) and the story is in 3rd person, it would be more correct to say "Shrubs so thick she (or Amber) couldn't..." Here is another instance: "Jet growled. He yanked the flames from the air and sent them shooting in their direction." Again, Jet is the last person mentioned, and the antecedent of "their" is several sentences in front of the pronoun which makes this description a bit confusing. Since "their" is a plural pronoun, I was able more easily to guess to whom it was referring. But grammatically it's still awkward since the last mentioned subject was Jet. It would have been better to have said "the soldiers" rather than "their". A similar situation to the confusing use of pronouns that I've already mentioned. There were other instances of pronouns used instead of the people they were referring to, that made this story confusing in parts.
Pronouns can be tricky and confusing if authors are not careful, and trip readers up. The author knows and can see the scene in her/his head, and often can forget to be careful with describing it to her/his audience!

Overall, however, the story is well thought out, and crafted. I would recommend passing this story by a professional editor to find the parts that can trip up a reader, especially the parts where pronouns need to be changed out for another pronoun, or taken out all together, and the person (or people) mentioned instead.