Providence

PROVIDENCE: A GOSPEL OF SCARS is a monumental and fiercely inspirational literary thriller that dissects the universal architecture of control and charts a young man's harrowing journey from a faith of fear to a faith forged in fire.
In the unforgiving heart of the Namibian desert, the isolated sect of Providence is a fortress ruled by The Shepherd, a charismatic prophet whose law is absolute. For Caleb, a young man raised in his shadow, life is a punishing performance to earn the approval of his powerful father. But when his sister Miriam is abused by a protected, high-ranking member, Caleb is forced to witness a brutal institutional cover-up that shatters his faith, revealing his sanctuary as a cage from which he must flee.
His desperate escape into the vibrant world of Windhoek leads him not to freedom, but to another cage: the gleaming, utopian campus of Aethel, a global tech corporation whose public mission is to "Connect the World with Integrity." Hunted by the sect's relentless enforcers and seduced by the promises of its visionary CEO-a 'Digital Shepherd'-he believes he has found safety. Instead, while working on the seemingly benevolent 'Project Oshana,' Caleb discovers the company's hypocrisy is a perfect mirror of the Fold's. He learns that the evil he escaped is not just a religious problem, but a universal human one.
This is not just a story of survival; it is an intelligent epic of resistance. As Caleb's world is unmade, he begins the slow, difficult work of rebuilding his soul. He is joined by a remarkable alliance of the broken and the brave: his resilient sister, Miriam, who transforms her trauma into a powerful, scholarly voice; a cynical programmer, Ben Frik, who finds his own lost conscience; and a traitor from within the Shepherd's own family. Guided by the ancestral wisdom of a Herero market woman, Meme Ndeapo, Caleb forges a new, "trauma-informed" faith.
He is faced with a final, soul-defining choice: the easy, satisfying justice of vengeance that would destroy his enemies, or the far more difficult and powerful path of unadorned, vulnerable truth. PROVIDENCE: A GOSPEL OF SCARS is a visceral and profoundly intelligent novel that is both a page-turning thriller and a deep meditation on the nature of faith. It is an unforgettable testament to the power of the human spirit to find liberation not in a perfect fortress, but in the wild, beautiful, and sacred wilderness of the heart.