The Union of Civic Harmony

Tomas Valente has spent twenty years doing what the Union asks of him.

He works inside its bureaucracy, reviewing cases, applying rules and finding small ways to keep difficult files from becoming worse. He is not a dissident. He is not looking for a fight. He has built a life around caution, routine and the belief that, however imperfect the system may be, there is usually a way to live with it.

Then his fourteen-year-old son, Elias, is flagged.

At first, Tomas believes it can be handled. A mistake can be explained. A bad assessment can be corrected. A misunderstanding can be contained.

But the Union does not forget easily.

As pressure begins to close around his family, Tomas is forced to confront questions he has spent years avoiding, about the system he serves, the woman he lost, the son he is trying to protect, and the kind of man he has become.

For the first time in his life, keeping his head down may no longer be enough.

The Union of Civic Harmony is a dystopian novel about state control, love, faith, fatherhood, defiance and redemption, but also about something harder to extinguish: the human need for meaning, and the possibility that an ordinary life can still become an act of courage.