Heretic

A satirical look at autocracy.

The Heretic is set in a future in which the government has strictly defined what is permissible to say on social media. Dissenters are labelled heretics and routinely arrested for cerebral crimes against the New Order. Say something on social media that offends the Supreme Leader, and you run the risk of getting taken away to a re-education camp.

Selene is a beautiful, sought after super-model - or at least she was until a terrible car accident leaves her badly disfigured. She's soon ghosted by all her friends - no one wants a super-model with a scarred face and a limp after all - and she's forced to find a new line of work as a computer programmer.

Jack grew up believing his father had died in a suspicious car crash, not long after being denounced for dissent on social media. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as it turns out, because Jack secretly harbors ideas and beliefs that are now illegal. 

Jack turns out to be a Heretic just like old Dad. However, he has to keep his opinions a secret for fear of being arrested by the Tolerance Bureau - the federal agency empowered to track down political dissenters.

When Jack and Selene inherit a rustic old cottage deep in the woods, far from civilization and the internet, their lives are forever changed. Because hidden in the junk and dusty old books they discover evidence that Jack's father is still alive, and in hiding from the Tolerance Bureau. Jack decides to risk everything to find his father, and is soon caught in a deadly race against shadowy agents of the Bureau.

The Heretic is the second in the Tolerance Bureau series. It portrays a dystopian Orwellian world in which getting cancelled takes on a whole new and much darker meaning, a world in which saying the wrong thing gets you sent to a federal re-education camp for political dissent.