About the Author
Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons. Connect with the author via agrivett.com
About the book
John Finlay is fleeing from failure. - His engineering business has failed. His relationship has failed. His flight from debts leads him to disaster – and to the Island, where he must learn to live anew.
Dermot, pulling a boy barely alive from the water, has never seen anyone so strangely dressed. His Celtic island knows nothing of debt, nor engineering. Where has this man come from? John struggles to accept that he has been carried across time and into another world – both like and unlike his own. How he got there is a mystery.
But John, the foreigner, must turn slowly into Dhion, the Islander. Still, he brings with him unfinished business that must be faced, and ideas that may not always be welcomed.
Meanwhile Dermot, consumed with a growing jealousy, develops his own deadly agenda. The whole community finds itself caught up in what becomes a matter of survival – or transformation. A tale of loss and change. A spiritual inquiry. And a love story.
Review
Although the story, which is the first part of The Isle of Fincara Trilogy, is speculative in nature it also brings together a myriad of aspects and perceptions. The spritual awakening for one. Not so much in a religious, pagan or the natural origin of past societies who are perhaps isolated from greater advancements and developments, but rather an awakening of self.
How John/Dhion adjusts and then comprehends that in this new setting he is no longer John with the burden or lightness of his previous life and identity. In this setting he is in fact Dhion and walks in the shoes of this emerging identity, albeit with the bonus of being able to access the knowledge and ability of John.
I did wonder why Dhion doesn't really delve deeply into the why or how of his new existence. Is it perhaps because he welcomes a new beginning or the concept that something more unusual than being recovered from the sea is at hand.
To some of the people who surround him he will always be the one borne of the sea, and that mirrors the way modern society distinguishes born and bred from the outsider, even if the outsider has a generational standing in said village, town or society. That inkling of other often brings an element of distrust with it, which explains the wariness when Dhion uses modern ideas to enhance the lives of those around him.
I think it's a book - or a start of a journey - that is better served without too much pre-knowledge from others. What I will add is that one of the last sentences captures not only the entirety of John becoming Dhion, but also serves a gentle reminder of something not everyone experiences - 'my feet feel they have found a path' - it encapsulates so much of this story and more.
Buy The Seaborne at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Pantolwen Press, published 21 October 2025. Buy via Barnes and Noble.
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