H M Sealey

This Broken Land H M Sealey

There are people, secular and religious, who will always seize power and do anything to keep it. But there are other people, regardless of faith, colour, language or culture, who will do anything to help their fellow man no matter what it costs them. This then, is humanity, both good and evil. It's a pity Joshua Kessler lives in a world that has redefined these words until they are meaningless. But then, most of Josh's life is meaningless. Britain is divided. Ever since the referendum on Shariah slashed the country in half, a wound from Stirling in the north to Brighton in the south. Old Britain to the west, The British State of Islam, the BSI, to the east. Everyone in Old Britain knows about the terrible theocracy imposed in the BSI, even if mentioning it is considered Hate Speech. Likewise, everyone in the BSI knows about the immorality and depravity found in Old Britain. But are things ever really so black and white? Separated from his parents by the state, Josh lives in a re-education centre where he is taught what to think and what to say as a citizen of totalitarian Old Britain where diversity rules and traditional beliefs are scorned. Elsie is a teacher, living a quiet, comfortable life close to the Border, never questioning the values she has learned or the truthfulness of the Government which shows almost fanatical concern for human rights. Provided those humans think and believe in an acceptable manner. Josh, befriended by River, a girl he barely knows and isn't certain he likes, escapes incarceration and heads to the Border, while Elsie's peaceful existence is shattered when her best friend is abducted and she learns her grandmother is not the harmless little old lady she pretends to be. Finding herself on the other side of the Border for the first time, Elsie discovers people more human and more loving than many of those she has left behind. Josh is not a freedom fighter; he's not a hero or a terrorist although he wonders whether River is both of those things. He just wants to be free. But when Government secrets are too big and too ugly to ignore, he, like so many other ordinary men and women before him, realises that freedom is the only thing worth fighting for.