Primitive by Rebecca Fernfield

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Blurb

They took her brother. Now they want her sister. One chance to escape. Can she take it?

England is broken: its lands swallowed by rising seas; its people lost to disease; its government destroyed by war. But where one power falls another one rises.

In the high lands of the Pennines the Primitives have taken control.

Meriall lives under their brutal domination, struggling to conform, raging against their cruelty, helpless against their power, knowing that each day brings her closer to being ‘collected’ and torn from the man she loves.

When she discovers the truth about ‘Collection Day’ she makes a desperate bid to escape. Can she save herself and her sister from the Primitives? Can she live the life of freedom with her lover that she craves? Or will the Watcher get her first?

Read the gripping tale of one girl’s rebellion against an evil regime that wants total control over her mind and her body.

Review

I loved this book, I've never read anything like it before. I found it very hard to put it down, impossible even at times. The author has done a fantastic job at pulling me into the book as well as making me bond with the characters.

Meriall lives in a small village. Unfortunately, her family and others live in fear that one of them will be taken just like her brother and others before.

Meriall and her friends go in search of some medicine for their friend Emett in a nearby abandoned village, but they are on limited time and have to make it back before assembly. Managing to make it to the abandoned town they manage to get themselves a good haul of things before heading off back home. Unfortunately not with anything that is of use to Emett. Emotions hit high after Meriall and Pascha follow a group of enforcers and discover they are taking their friends Isa and Rias family to be punished. Finding out their suspicions were right about Jannet being an informer after they caught her red-handed and with some persuasion, she confesses it all but then threatens to tell the watcher Meriall's family secrets too if she doesn't let her go.

Meriall and |Pascha manage to set Ish and Ria free, they, their mothers, Meriall's sister and The Watchers wife flee the town top the abandoned village, Hawdale and just about make it without being seen.

Unfortunately, most of the group are caught, Ish, Meriall and Pascha manage to avoid capture but are now running for their lives when something terrible happens to one of the group and Meriall is in turmoil over her loss. All of the group are taken to the Capital which is run by the founding fathers. Because of Merialls great success in making the leaders angry she is told she has to go into the pit where she will either break or die when someone she thought she lost appears. Managing to beat the pit Meriall and her friends manage to escape yet again, but she decides she can't leave the children that were transported previously and went back to save them with Owin. Making up a small resistance they go back and make up a plan, but they find themselves double-crossed, and Meriall is caught and sentenced to death. She is left surprised when her cell door is open, but not by a guard...

Fighting for survival will they make their way out alive.