To survive, citizens must live, dress, and even love according to the United
Council’s will. Their power is absolute—until a rebel bomb ignites at a
national ceremony and unites the lives of three unlikely people.
When the bombing goes wrong, Nicolette Howell, a young heretic, finds
herself alone and on the run, bearing secrets that Arcadia would kill for.
When she’s captured, she must escape, but how can she, when her best chance
lies with the son of her sworn enemy?
Driven by the execution of an innocent, Jacob Osgood, a United Councilor’s
son, hunts for the truth about the heretic movement that Arcadia has hidden.
But truth could cost him the one thing he cannot stand to lose: the girl who
saved his life at the bombing.
Shiloh Haven, the orphaned daughter of heretics, is forced to become
Arcadia’s spy in a sinister plot to destroy the heretic army. She faces a
terrible choice: survive or risk everything to save the boy she might just
love and the rebels who are her only chance of being free.
As their fates entwine, the three must answer an impossible question.
n, anyone
who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.
Here’s the brutal truth about being human: Our inherent
desire is to belong.You listen to about
one Ted talk by the genius Brene Brown, and you realize that this isn’t just
philosophy talking. This is hard, brutal naked truth supported by decades of
science (yes, love and belonging is something people study). The problem with
this desire to belong is far often we are born into or find ourselves in spaces
where belonging to the group
contraindicates being your true self.
Too often, in order to belong, we find ourselves trying to
morph into something we are not, to mimic what the people around us want. For
me, it was the conservative subculture I grew into where there seemed to be
rules about how we talked, how we dressed, what we believed. And I tried…for
years, I tried. I measured my shorts at the length of the fingertips. I did
gymnastics to ensure no clothing rode up too far. I pressed my thumb to my
collar bone and kept all my fingers together to make sure my shirt wasn’t cut
too low. I was polite, meek, and obedient--all to be considered a good girl.
But I wasn’t really a ‘good girl’, and I knew it.Deep down, I believed scandalous things.
Things that could only be talked about in low tones. Equality, social justice,
feminism, the freedom to love who you love, and in a God who was inclusive, who
did mercy not judgment.
I was a heretic, before I even realized it. And many of you
reading this are one too. Some of you are inherently, beautiful different. Maybe it’s because of the
crush you have on the boy who sits next to you in school. Only you’ve always
been taught that boys aren’t supposed to like boys, are they? Maybe it’s
because you are the only girl wearing a hijab in your high school. Maybe it’s
because your skin color doesn’t fit into the snowy whiteness that surrounds
you.
That feeling of not belonging hurts, doesn’t it?That feeling of not being free to be yourself
is the worst possible cage we can be in.
The saying goes ‘we write what we know’ and I know this pain
well. From it, my book, HERESY, was born. The world the book is set in,
Arcadia, is a world where being different is HERESY, and heresy is DEATH.
One of the main characters, Shiloh Haven, knows this well. As
he daughter of heretics, she’s always known she doesn’t belong. So she’s made a
game of portraying exactly what Arcadia wants her to be, all in the name of
survival--until she’s forced between living this life of charade or saving the
people she loves.
Jacob Osgood is the rebellious son of an Arcadian leader who
wants to be free, but feels just as trapped in his role as his father’s puppet.
So he rebels in small ways--parties and reckless behavior--until he finds a way
that he might actually be able to fight back...and a reason beyond himself to
do it.
But being something other than what they’re told to be may
very well cost their lives.
I hope that you will read their journey, but mostly, I hope
you will learn the lesson that I spent decades learning. If you are not truly
being you, then you don’t belong
there. It isn’t true belonging. It’s a cheap counterfeit. And there is
nothing--nothing--more important than
being yourself.
So here is my new definition
of heretic...
heretic
n, someone
who dares to be different or, really, just to be themselves in a world that
tries to make them into something else.
And I hope when given the choice between fitting in and being
unapologetically, fearlessly, recklessly you, I hope you choose to be YOU
(because who you are is perfect). I hope you’re brave enough to love who you
love and believe what you believe. I hope you kiss that boy or rock that hijab.
I hope you choose to BE A HERETIC.
C. A. Campbell hails from Kansas City (The Missouri side, if you please),
where she shares her writing space with her husband and three ridiculous
dogs. She splits her time between writing, saving tiny lives, and teaching
students how not to kill people as a neonatal intensive care nurse and nurse
educator. When she’s not working, she can be found (likely, in her pajamas)
making things out of yarn, listening to a true crime podcast, or yelling at
medical errors in television shows. Heresy is her debut novel.
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I like the cover
ReplyDeleteI love this cover it looks awesome
ReplyDelete