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The Rise up trilogy is a page-turning and thrilling, coming-of-age story by Henrik Wilenius ➱ Book Tour with Guest Post & Giveaway

 THE RISE UP TRILOGY

by 

 Henrik Wilenius

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GENRE:  Young Adult Contemporary

 

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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 well-being of their community and the world is threatened. They are called to act.

 


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.

 


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.

 

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 EXCERPT

From CATCH YOU IF YOU FALL

 “And it’s going to happen tomorrow,” Hashim said as he crouched on the couch.

 Alex drew his brows closer, but soon his forehead smoothed. “Seriously?” he said and studied Hashim’s face. “Wow. We need to get you out of this mess.”

 Sharing his predicament with his best friend had calmed Hashim’s nerves. Not that he had told the whole story, like the fact that he was gay. However, that was a piece of information he had only shared with God, though unwillingly, because from Him, you can’t hide a thing.

 Alex’s eyes grew wide. “But you’re just turning eighteen, for God’s sake. Isn’t it a little early to get engaged?”

 Hashim pressed his lips together and winced. You tell me.

 “His mom knows that once Hashim has committed to an engagement, he won’t break it,” Maryam said. She had been following the conversation from the other side of the room, giving the guys some space after she saw how upset Hashim was when he came in. “Without a solid religious reason to back out, that could shame the whole family,” she added. “People won’t greet you anymore or return your calls. You become a nobody.”

 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.

From COLLUSION

 “Yes, let’s talk about protecting the American way,” Maryam responded to the reporter. “Let’s talk about the Norfolk Naval Station in his home state of Virginia. We were there only a few days ago. All it takes is some rain and high tide, and a large part of the base goes underwater. And many of the piers were out of operation for that reason. Like Norfolk, many other U.S. navy bases have been built on lowlands by the water, and most of them are literally sinking into the sea as we speak.”

 Hashim bit down a smile from the sidelines. Maryam was going head on. She had seen how well it worked with the President when Alex did it.

 “But Senator Stevenson and his colleagues refuse to talk about the biggest national security risk of our time, because it’s caused by climate change. Senator Stevenson with his fellow climate change deniers in the Senate are blocking all the attempts to fund any initiatives to address the issue. So I truly wonder what or who is the real threat to the American way?”

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Guest Post

Topic: Do your characters seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have the reins of the story? Explain.

As I wrote the Rise Up Trilogy, there are many instances where the character highjacked the story, but there were two instances where it really blew my mind. 

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 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, particularly 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. 

When I started writing the Rise Up Trilogy, the character hardest to crack was Maryam. Both Hashim and Alex I somehow knew by heart, although Hashim was the one that needed a lot more research due to his Muslim background. Although Sufism, the mystical sext of Islam, had played essential part of my own spiritual awakening, to write Hashim’s character arc I really needed to immerse in the Islamic doctrine and read about lives of Muslim LGBTQ+ people. I knew already what direction Hashim was going to (towards Sufism) but I really needed to study conservative Islam and the political and cultural life of Egypt, where his family is from. Each book focuses on one of the three protagonists where they gain an important insight into their life that changes how they view themselves and the world around them. Maryam does it in Collusion, the book three of the Rise Up Trilogy. When I started to write it, I didn’t know what this insight would be. When writing the previous books, I had heard her voice and felt her feelings but now I needed to dig a lot deeper, and what I found was magical. Her character highjacked the story, and soon, Alex did the same. If I must pick a moment that gave me greatest satisfaction on my writer’s journey, it was when both of their lives revealed itself to me in all its complexities and they found the way how to move forward in the most natural way.  

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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.

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVJ1TNFG

Buzz Sprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2264640

Website: http://www.henrikwilenius.com

TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/henrikwileniusauthor

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/@henrikwileniusauthor

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GIVEAWAY 

The author will award the winner's choice of an audiobook set via Spotify or a digital book set of THE RISE UP TRILOGY.

 

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