In the gritty streets of Coxthorpe, a forgotten English mill town where minarets pierce the skyline and old resentments simmer, a lonely warehouse worker named Adam stumbles into a cultural firestorm. The ancient Rush Bearing festival - a procession involving morris dancers, maidens, and a crusader knight - has been revived, sparking hope and igniting outrage across this deeply divided town.

Curious about the sources of the controversy, Adam launches an online video channel, The Haxton Review, to document the clash of identities and traditions it has laid bare. As he delves deeper, alliances fracture, secrets unravel, and the hidden contours of power become - briefly, terribly - visible.

Blending sharp social commentary and raw personal confession, Joshua Knapp's debut novel is a tense, timely thriller set against the soft totalitarianism of contemporary Britain.

Joshua Knapp is a writer in northern England.

"Joshua Knapp’s novel is a skilfully-crafted page-turner with a disturbing twist in the end. The message is powerful and important – but the novel is as much a lament as a call to resistance. Its message is to beware." - James Monteith, The Salisbury Review

"Knapp paints a tragic, but true to life, picture of England and the entirety of the wider West: a civilization populated by atomized individuals living in their own ruins, disconnected from their history, and manipulated by those who truly, desperately, wish to see it disappear." - Anthony J. Constantini, American Greatness