Tim Urban – författare

"e;Under God's Rock"e; is set in 11th-century Normandy. Crippled in his youth, a blasphemous monk named Wido, unearths a relic the Bible says does not exist - and the Catholic Church never wants to be found. By a twist of fate he crosses paths with the Viking, Styrkar, and both will come to have their lives changed by the boulder known as God's Rock. 11th-century Normandy. A recklessly rebellious peasant boy living on the edge of a towering sea cliff, Wido is a sinner by choice, and his arrogance is punished with a vengeance when the massive boulder he's standing on - known as God's Rock - breaks loose during a sudden storm and crashes into the sea below. Rescued from the rubble by the Viking Styrkar - the sole survivor of the same rock-fall that crushed his ship and crew - a crippled Wido hovers near death for weeks as his widowed young mother, Adelvia, in gratitude, shelters the wounded Norseman from a notorious relic-hunter desperate to possess an unfathomable treasure aboard his missing ship. Only, as the God-fearing Adelvia's increasingly immoral attraction to Styrkar leads to a betrayal of her sacred marriage vows to her long-dead husband, savaged by guilt, she forces him from her shack and, unwittingly, into the jaws of the hunter's dogs. Suffering under the warlord's whip, Styrkar vows to die before he will give up his hard-won prize: gold, silver, and jewels looted from lands the world over. And unbeknownst to either man - softly glowing in a simple stone box - the holiest relic in all of Christendom. Now buried. In a ship. Under God's Rock. Nine months after Styrkar's violent capture, Adelvia's sinful act turns to something worse when a hate-filled and jealous Wido kills their bastard child at birth. Fearing the Devil is in his soul, a helpless Adelvia then delivers her blackhearted seven-year-old son into the hands of the Catholic Church and a life of serving the god he blames for ruining his life. Suffering the hypocrisy of a money-grubbing, nihilistic Church raised over the mysteriously missing bones of the greatest charlatan of them all, the monastery is Purgatory. God, Jesus. His mother. Wido hates them all. And his only reason to live is to even the score. So it is, after thirty-three years of challenging God to unmask this Holy Ghost named Jesus and prove His miraculous healing power by restoring life to his useless legs - amidst another murderous storm - a Hell-bound Wido comes face-to-face with a relic the Bible says does not exist. And can, should he reveal its dark hiding place, reduce the Christian Empire to dust. In a stunning twist of his horrible life, God's fate is in Wido's hands.