The Seaborne, Isle Fincara Trilogy, Book 1 - Softcover

Rivett, A. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1802275126 ISBN 13: 9781802275124

Publisher: Pantolwen Press, 2022

Synopsis

In a world where climate scientists urge us to simplify our lives and the plight of refugees grows ever more pressing, The Seaborne offers a story about a white, educated, middle-class refugee who is obliged to reduce his carbon footprint to zero. It may be for this reason that the poet and academic, Damian Walford Davies, has described the novel as ʻa parable for our particularly torn times.ʼ


John Finlay is fleeing from failure. His engineering business has failed, his relationship has failed. His flight from debts leads him to disaster – and to the Island, where he must learn to live anew.
Dermot, pulling a body, barely alive, from the water, has never seen anyone so strangely dressed. His Celtic island knows nothing of debt, nor engineering. Where has this man come from?
John struggles to accept that he has been carried across time and into another world – both like and unlike his own. How he got there is a mystery. But John the foreigner must turn slowly into Dhion the Islander. Still, he brings with him unfinished business that must be faced, and ideas that may not always be welcomed. Meanwhile Dermot, consumed with a growing jealousy, develops his own deadly agenda. The whole community finds itself caught up in what becomes a matter of survival – or transformation.
A tale of discovery and reassessment, in which John-Dhion must struggle to find himself, his role, his love and his place in this new, old, world.


A novel of Celtic quantum time that asks us to consider the ways in which we are all born strangers, seaborne foundlings, living between worlds. A parable for our particularly torn times.
Damian Walford Davies

Quite captivating. I love the elemental quality and the constant presence of the wild and rugged landscape. The characters are strong and believable. A deep and thought-provoking book.
Josie Smith

A beautiful story, imbued with Celtic themes and a deep spirituality. The story unfurls like a flower coming into bloom.
Don MacGregor, Midwest Book Review

This was such an engaging read. The author does a great job of creating a breathtaking world that draws the reader in and populates it with characters that keep the reader invested throughout.
authoranthonyavinablog.com

It is notoriously difficult to create an internally consistent and convincing alternative universe – something I think Rivett has achieved magnificently.
Richard Danckwerts

Coaxes us to turn to a simpler, more community-based way of living where there are no or fewer planes in the sky and our lives are forced into simplicity, personal creativity, greater stillness.
Jo Parsons

I found myself sad when I had to leave the island at the end of the book, because I enjoyed the peace and strength that it lent me.
www.woodbtwntheworlds.blogspot.com

About this title

About the Author

 
A.G. Rivett was born in London. His first degree was in medicine and he edited the medical school Gazette. He practised in London and in a leprosy hospital in northern Nigeria. In 1987 he was ordained into the Church of England but later returned to medicine as a public health doctor in Hampshire, where his three daughters live. In 2006 he retired to northern Scotland where he encountered the ancient Celtic tradition of the Céile Dé or Culdee, a tradition that has left a lasting impression on his mind. In Scotland, he lived between the remote West Coast peninsula of Scoraig and the spiritual community of Findhorn, where he met his second wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who encouraged him to start writing his first novel and became his editor. They now live in West Wales, where they have built an eco-house and cultivate a wildflower meadow.

A G Rivett's first publisher, Wordcatcher, was based in Cardiff. When they ceased trading, his wife Gillian started a small publishing house, Pantolwen Press. She submitted The Priest's Wife to the Books Council of Wales, who awarded a literary grant to assist publication, and supports Pantolwen Press in a variety of ways.

The Seaborne, first book of the Isle Fincara Trilogy, was first published in 2019. A new edition was brought out by Pantolwen Press in 2023, alongside The Priest's Wife. The final book in the Trilogy is in preparation.

A G Rivett has also written a collection of short stories, A Thin Place, as yet unpublished.

From the Inside Flap

What would it be like for a man with today's knowledge of technology to find himself in pre-industrial times? This was a question A G Rivett used to wonder about and dream into. He set pen to paper as an idea for a story began to form in his mind, but put it aside. Returning to it after twenty years, his first sketch developed into The Seaborne.

By the time the book was written, a growing awareness of the pressure of post-industrial human activity on wildlife and countryside was lending an urgency to ideas that had started as simple curiosity. Rivett had become convinced that any realistic strategy for sustainable living must include the idea of radically simplifying lifestyle to reduce consumption. Can science and technology alone free us from the problems created through their use? Must living standards continually rise? What about the pressures this exacts on other life-forms, and the interdependence between them and us? Rivett came to question what values actually constitute a high standard of living, and what qualities, in the last analysis, truly give meaning to our lives.

It is perhaps this prophetic voice that led poet and academic, Damian Walford Davies, to describe The Seaborne as a parable for our particularly torn times.

"Coaxes us to turn to a simpler, more community-based way of living where there are no or fewer planes in the sky and our lives are forced into simplicity, personal creativity, greater stillness, listening and natural rhythm. A connectedness with each other and the sacredness of all."

JO PARSONS

Edition details

• Publisher: Pantolwen Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1802275126
• ISBN 13: 9781802275124
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 370