Acts of Faith ~ Paperback ~ MR Clive Gilson

The European Renaissance never happened. The Ottomans were not stopped at the gates of Vienna. Ferdinand and Isabella failed in their attempt to defeat the Moors. Imagine a world turned upside down. Northern Europe is the basket case. The Middle East is the centre of the developed and "civilised" world. Acts is a reflective, personal journey, a moving story of loss, love and transition. It is about Marwan the boy and Marwan the man - and not so much the wider socio-political implications of the world he finds himself in, although these glimpses offer a thought-provoking dimension. The story is uplifting as Marwan's humanity shines through: the book itself is like a meditation on isolation, which links the reader with Marwan: to keep the focus on him keeps the reader's focus narrow - so there is a real empathy there. One loves Marwan as Marwan himself loves... ...and through Marwan's story we ask a simple question; how would we behave if we were dealt the same hand as the Lebanese in the 1980's or the Palestinians and Iraqi's now? Acts of Faith takes us on a journey of hope amid chaos and brutality in a world so very similar to the one that we feel so comfortable in, except that it might very well be we who are the extremists. Over the last two or three years I've concentrated on writing shorts for free eBook downloads via places such as the iBookstore, Smashwords and other similar publishers and aggregators. Having broken the 50,000 download barrier earlier this year, I'm now producing larger collections for both print and electronic distribution. These new editions will be joined by new works over the coming months and years as I develop new ideas in both the short and long formats. I'm looking forward to getting new work up for you all in the coming months and hopefully we'll get chance to share work, comments, feedback and all that good stuff...Author BiographyFor the full bio please see my Author Central page. Following are extracts from an interview conducted in early 2015: What's the story behind your last novel? My last published novel is Acts of Faith, which came out at the end of 2012. The story is based on memoirs from the eighties - namely those of people like Tom Sutherland, Terry Anderson, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. That was the germ of an alternative history where the oil rich Middle Eastern states are what we in the West like to think of as the developed world and poor Northern Europe is the fundamentalist "basket case." The story is written as a memoir by a twenty-something Lebanese man who comes to war-torn England as an aid worker. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing? As a family we moved around quite a bit when I was young. I think we moved about seven times by the time I was twenty (although I'd left for college at eighteen - another move, of course). I guess the key things that I learned then were things like self-reliance and the art of making a life in ever-changing circumstances, all of which have stayed with me throughout my adult life. As far as influences on my writing are concerned I think this is reflected in the independence of thought and the range of subject areas that I have covered. I don't like to be pigeon-holed or tied down to one particular genre or area of story-telling. You could say that I'm "bloody-minded" about it at times, but the variety keeps me interested and motivated. That said, of course, the very fact that I range over different areas and topics sometimes mean that maybe I miss a trick in establishing a stable audience. What is the greatest joy of writing for you? Seeing where the story goes. Obviously I plan and storyboard but I love the fact that characters take on their own lives and personalities as you unfold the layers and as situations develop. In my first novel, Songs of Bliss, I was pretty strict with the storyboard concept, almost making it filmic in the development of acts and scenes. With Acts of Faith I felt much more free to let the story develop organically, and I think that sense of enjoyment shows in the story-telling. What are you working on next? I have written the opening sequences to Arkland and to Cry Havoc and I hope to get into the detail in the next few weeks and months. Of course there's always the shorts. I just love short stories so you can expect to see new stories popping up shortly.