When Eva's twin brother, Eamon, falls to his death just a few months before he is due to participate in the Testing, no one expects Eva to take his place. She's a Maiden, slated for embroidery classes, curtseys, and soon, a prestigious marriage befitting the daughter of an Aerie ruler.

But Eva insists on honoring her brother by becoming a Testor. After all, she wouldn't be the first Maiden to Test - just the first in 150 years.

For teens who love the genre of dystopian novels, you will devour "RELIC", The books of Eva authored by Heather Terrell. After thinking that one cataclysmic flood is a punishment by their gods for their evils, the rulers of the Aerie are rigid and demanding so that another flood will not destroy them. Eva, 18 yr. old twin to now dead, Eamon, must take his place on the 'TESTING'; this is when wolves travel by dogsled over snow and ice. Given her brother's journal, she realizes he was about to embark on a mission that would change her world forever, but it does not describe how.
Relics, such as our present-day iPhones, guns and make-up affect the adventurous story with an ironic touch. Relic is the beginning of a trilogy that is written artfully, delicately weaving in elements of Inuit culture as well as elements as found in Games of Thrones.
A page turner, for sure and the plot with such a strong female character is a great role model for gilrsl An interesting settingm, memorable characters allow me to heartily recommend this for a great summer reading. ( )

With so many dystopian novels on the shelves, it's easy to feel like there's nothing new. RELIC by Heather Terrell, however, reinvents the genre for the first time since THE HUNGER GAMES. Perhaps this is setting the bar a bit high in the eyes of a potential reader. But here's the thing -- this book is truly fantastic.

Set in the far north, RELIC follows young Eva, about to take on a task that is usually for young men from the Aerie. Girls are meant to be wives and mothers. Or, in her case, ladies. They aren't meant to take a team of dogs trekking to the edge of the known world for the Testing, where they might search for historical Relics. Relics like amulets of the false god Apple.

Eva is undertaking this journey in honor of her twin brother Eamon, who passed away under somewhat mysterious circumstances. And with the guidance of Lukas, an outsider from The Boundary Lands, she might even have a chance to prove herself worthy of The Testing. What she doesn't expect, however, is to find something that will shake her entire worldview -- her faith, her society, and her family.

Part post-apocalyptic fiction and part high fantasy, RELIC is the beginning of a trilogy that is written artfully and with a voice you will not soon forget. Delicately weaving in elements of Inuit culture as well as elements you might find in Game of Thrones, Heather Terrell creates a world that is as intricate as it is icy. The intrigue and mystery make it a page-turner, and the rich and complex characters make it hard to forget. I cannot wait for the sequel! ( )

This is Book One of a new trilogy, touted as a story to appeal to fans of The Hunger Games. And in fact, it could have been titled "The Kinder Gentler (But Not Better) Hunger Games in the Arctic."

The story building is much more detailed than in The Hunger Games. The New North is the Arctic island home of the only survivors of global flooding after the polar ice caps melted some 250 years before this story takes place. New North is ruled by a Triad (mandated by The Gods, needless to say), consisting of a Lexor (sort of a police chief), a Basilikon (priest) and Archon (government administrator). The polity relies on two sacred texts, The Praebulum and The Lex. The Lex sounds suspiciously like the Bible, but the New North people don’t know that, because they don't know what the Bible is.

One reason they are uninformed is because New North has been organized in the form of a medieval society, without access to much knowledge of the past. The people have been taught that technology is what angered the gods and brought their wrath down on earth. The people of New North know only what they are taught about the time before:

"We of the New North need Archons to show us the perils of our ways before the Healing - the abuse of our Father Earth that yielded the Healing floods. We need to learn again of the hunger for Tylenols that poisoned our minds; the thirst for Cokes that weakened our bodies; the greed for MasterCards that toppled our rules. All this evil spawned from the worship of the false god Apple....”

Needless to say, New North is not sponsoring Black Friday sales each year. What they do host each year, however, is a game in which eighteen-year-olds compete in The Testing to serve in the Triad. As part of the competition, they must climb down a glacier and dig through the ice to find relics: leftovers from antediluvian times. The most valued relics are of course the Evil Apple devices. (Not much has changed in that respect…) There are always relics to be found; the more critical part of the Testing (besides surviving, of course), is to construct the best Chronicle about the found relic, describing how the relic led to mankind’s fall.

Eamon, son of the current Chief Archon, is scheduled to take part in The Testing this year, but when he falls to his death from the Arctic Ring while training, his twin sister Eva takes his place. She is helped in her training by Lukas, one of the boundary peoples that serve the families of the New North. Complicating matters is the fact that she must compete against the boy to whom she presumably will be bethrothed, Jasper, who is son of the Chief Lexor.

Out in the frozen grounds of The Testing, all the Testors find their relics, but it is Eva who comes up with a new way to chronicle her find, and Eva who discovers that everything she was taught may not necessarily be true.

The book includes a few illustrations by Ricardo Cortes.

What I Liked:

The world-building shows talent and imagination.

Eva is a good heroine, although she seems to be the lone three-dimensional being in a world full of flat space characters.

What I Didn’t Like:

The bit about Tylenol and Coke and Apple is simplistic and downright silly.

The set-up for the inevitable triangle is eye-rolling.

The identity of the bad guy is pretty obvious.

The writing is a bit robotic.

Evaluation: This book is somewhat entertaining, but a bit too derivative of The Hunger Games, except without the depth which enabled us to care more about the characters. The world-building shows a lot of promise, but sometimes goes way over the top.

Rating: 2.5/5 ( )

Book Review & Giveaway: We’re participating in the Dystopian Giveaway Hop and decided that Relic: The Books of Eva by Heather Terrell would be the perfect choice for this giveaway. Relic is Book #1 of the series, The Chronicles of Eva. It takes place after catastrophic climate change has occurred on the planet so it definitely fits the dystopian genre but it also has elements of mystery and even historical fiction.

Even if you’re not a dystopian fan, this one will appeal to you if you like reading about accidental heroines, how history can repeat itself, or about young people learning to embrace their power and determine who they will become vs. who they’ve been told to become. If you liked The Hunger Games, this one will probably appeal although it is not a derivative of that series by any means. Read on to learn more about Relic and our giveaway at http://popcornreads.com/?p=6723. ( )