THE RISE UP TRILOGY
Henrik Wilenius
GENRE: Young Adult Contemporary
BLURB:
The Rise up trilogy is a coming-of-age story about Hashim, Alex and Maryam, three best friends on the threshold of adulthood. Before they can find their place in this world, they must come to terms with their past and learn to confide in each other as they are confronted by intolerance, ignorance, and corporate greed that threaten to rob them of their future. Inspirational, harrowing, intense and deeply moving, this trilogy presents a ray of hope amidst terrible hardship, misfortune and loss.
Book One: Catch You if You Fall
High school best friends Hashim, Alex, and Maryam must confront real-life issues that loom for Gen-Z today, including the climate crisis, corrupt politics, and racial and gender equity.
When Hashim turns eighteen, he receives a grant from his Mosque that will send him to an Ivy League in New York. His devout Muslim family couldn’t be more proud. And to support their young son on his journey, they arrange a wife for him. There’s only one problem: Hashim is gay.
Hashim’s best friend Alex is struggling with a difficult home life, a non-present father, and financial issues that prove particularly painful when all his friends are planning to go off to college and leave him behind.
Standing confidently alongside these two boys is Maryam, a headstrong Muslim girl who bucks her traditional roots by becoming a vegan activist.
It doesn’t take long until certain evil forces start to draw these three even closer, as their futures and the wellbeing of their community and the world is threatened. They are called to act.
Purchase Catch You If You Fall @ Amazon
Book Two: Merry Farm
In the second installment of the Rise Up Trilogy, best friends Hashi, Alex, and Maryam stumble upon a huge government coverup. When more people get sicker and sicker, and nothing about the outbreak makes news, it becomes clear the corruption goes up high.
As the three attempt to expose and stop a tragedy that could kill thousands, they end up framed as the bioterrorists responsible for this exact crime, and a team of hitmen is dispatched to hunt them down. As they grapple with their own growing pains, Hashi, Alex, and Maryam hurry to outrun the disaster, prove that they are innocent, and do what they feel is right.
Purchase Merry Farm @ Amazon
Book Three: Collusion
Now a well-known activist, Maryam, along with her two best friends Hashim and Alex, is chosen by the President of the United States to draw up a proposal to help fight climate change, mere weeks before superstorm Roxanne makes landfall in the Northeast.
After the President’s Future Rescue Advisory Board hears their climate proposal to set heavy taxes on meat, dairy and carbon emissions, and someone leaks it to the press, chaos spreads across party lines. A few months since they stopped a deadly virus in its tracks, the three uncover a conspiracy on the highest level of the legislative branch.
While the deadly hurricane wreaks havoc along the eastern seaboard, destroying the U.S. Naval Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and hitting New York City with devastating force, Maryam, Hashim, and Alex grapple with forces beyond their control in the government.
How will their stories unravel? What do their futures hold as they mature into adults in a world that may not accept them? Find out in this last book in the Rise Up Trilogy.
Purchase Collusion @ Amazon
Excerpt:
From MERRY FARM
A high fence surrounded a vast, sparsely lit compound with dozens of long, windowless buildings. A worn-out sign board stood on a barren ground facing the road. It pictured a traditional country house next to a wooden barn and free-gazing hens on sloping meadows. On the top of the illustration ‘Merry Farm” was printed in an old-fashioned font with slogan: ‘Even chickens recommend us.’
The door to one of the low buildings cracked open. The eerie, silent night was broken by the screeching cries of thousands of hens inside. A young, dark-skinned man in dirty overalls stepped out. He wiped sweat from his beardless face and threw glances left and right.
The door wouldn’t close. With mounting desperation, the worker yanked the handle up, but it wouldn’t hold and the shrieking noise only got louder and louder.
A broad-shouldered man watched the worker from the shadows. As he ground his teeth, a scar that ran from his right earlobe to his Adam’s apple shifted back and forth. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and zeroed his cold, deep-set eyes on the target.
As if sensing the danger, the farm worker slammed his body against the door and this time it stayed shut. It was quiet for a moment until he started coughing hard and soon it turned into choking. After covering his mouth with his hand, there was blood on his palm.
Interview with Henrik Wilenius
Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?
Boy’s own story by Edmund White was a paradigm shift for me. It was a touchstone in gay culture just as Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin was in the 30s, Larry Kramer’s Faggots in the 70s". It’s a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel about growing up gay in the 1950’s in the Midwest that became a mainstream bestseller. Gay fiction didn’t need to be marginalized anymore. I love his writing style so much that I ended up reading all the books he published during his relatively short but prolific writing career. I’ve never tried to emulate his writing style though. His novels are pure literary fiction with an abundance of cultural references with a self-depreciative, ironic first-person narrator.
How do you select the names of your characters?
I’m not sure I select the names of my characters or if they select me, at least with the main ones. Once the name has come to me, I do a little research to find its mythology, and to make sure it’s an appropriate one as I have usually a diverse cast.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
I don’t hide any secrets in my manuscript intentionally, but of course there are things that open to only people in the know, especially in the area of spirituality, religion, history, politics, and social activism. As much as possible, I try not to confuse people with complicated sentence structure or sesquipedalian words.
What was your hardest scene to write?
I think the hardest scene to write was towards the end of Collusion, book three of the Rise Up Trilogy, where Alex resorts to a horrible act of violence unconsciously out of the survival instinct. I hate violence and I try to use it as little as possible, but I couldn’t find any other way out for Alex. I was surprised and horrified of myself how I could have written such a scene, but it felt so true that I didn’t have any other choice than leave it be.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
In the Rise Up Trilogy, I want all three books to stand on their own while they are still connected to each other. Of course, I want my readers to read all three of them but as all three have very different settings and themes besides the unifying spiritual/religious undercurrent, I don’t want to coax them to do that. For that purpose, I don’t end any book in a cliff hanger, like I tend to do with each chapter.
What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
When I started to write the Rise Up Trilogy, I tried not have an agenda. I believed that I didn’t have to force my beliefs and understanding to my writing. They would come naturally. I just wanted my story to be honest, well-written, and inspiring, and I feel I’ve achieved it.
What inspired you to write the Rise Up Trilogy?
I published years ago a YA novel in Finland about three best friends at the threshold of adulthood which was inspired by a fifteen-year stint as a volunteer in a Red Cross youth shelter. I wanted to get it published it abroad, but I felt something was missing. Since my early teens I’ve been fascinated by Islam. Sufism, the mystical sect of Islam, played a key role in my own spiritual awakening and spurred me to become a writer. Then one day as I was browsing books in a bookshop in Amsterdam, I came across Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki about Arab sexuality, including the history of homosexuality in the Arab world. During the Golden Age of Islam, homosexual yearnings were very well tolerated, even celebrated among the poets, intellectuals and upper echelons of the society. What happened to this open-mindedness over the centuries really captivated my imagination, especially since I knew from Sufism how forgiving and merciful Islam is. The third big inspiration came from within as I became vegan myself and saw how for our diet, we are not only ruthlessly killing farm animals but also ourselves while destroying our planet in the process.
Can you tell us a little bit about the next books in The Rise Up Trilogy or what you have planned for the future?
I have three manuscripts in different stages of development in my virtual drawer. All of them are coming-of-age stories with strong social justice issues. I haven’t yet decided if I will continue writing about Hashim, Maryam and Alex, though. I guess I’m still waiting if the Rise Up Trilogy can gain more readers. As it is right now, I don’t see the point of continuing but then again, if this blog tour hits off, the chances of me getting back to these characters increase. Then I would pick a time maybe two or three years after Collusion, book three, ended. I have some ideas already, but I rather not yet talk about except that there are big surprises coming.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in The Rise Up Trilogy?
When Hashim turns eighteen, he receives a grant from his Mosque that will send him to an Ivy League in New York. His devout Muslim family couldn’t be more proud. And to support their young son on his journey, they arrange a wife for him. There’s only one problem: Hashim is gay.
Hashim’s best friend Alex is struggling with a difficult home life, a non-present father, and financial issues that prove particularly painful when all his friends are planning to go off to college and leave him behind. Standing confidently alongside these two boys is Maryam, a headstrong Muslim girl who bucks her traditional roots by becoming a vegan activist.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
If I must pick my favourite part of writing, it must be the dialogue. It really flows naturally out of me, and often it shows my characters’ vulnerability which I love. It’s so rewarding to be able to see behind the mask to their true selves, not that they are pretentious but it’s something they would rather not show or are not even aware of. I really hear their voices in my head, especially of my three young heroes. Another thing I love about the dialogue is the silliness. Maybe it’s because I love to be silly myself with my husband and friends. I think it’s overly underrated among adults. I feel sorry for those who don’t know how to be silly. It brings so much joy to everyday life.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Henrik Wilenius is the author of the Rise Up Trilogy, a young adult coming-of-age story about Hashim, Alex and Maryam confronting real-life issues like climate change, corrupt politics, animal cruelty and racial and gender equity.
The Rise Up Trilogy is now available also as an audiobook and a weekly serialized audiobook podcast on all the major platforms.
Previously, Henrik as published two books (an autobiographical coming of age book and a YA novel) by a major publisher (WSOY) in Finland before switching to English and self-publishing. The Rise Up Trilogy was inspired by his fifteen-year stint as a volunteer in a Red Cross Youth Shelter and by his vegan activism.
Connect with Henrik Wilenius
Buzz Sprout ~ Website ~ TikTok ~ Instagram
3 comments:
Thank you for having me! I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for featuring Henrik Wilenius and THE RISE UP TRILOGY.
Looks like a good read.
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