About The Book

Shattered Faith is a contemporary novel about growing up inside Scientology, and what it costs to leave.

Quinn does not join the Church as a curious adult. He is born into it. His entire world is the Calgary Org that sits above a strip mall. For him, the Church is family, community, and the only spiritual language he has ever known. The terms that define his life, from “Ethics” and “stats” to “conditions” and “Suppressive Persons”, feel as ordinary as homework and hockey practice.

From the outside, the Org looks like another small religious centre trying to survive in a modern city. Inside, Quinn learns that belonging depends on obedience. Sec Checks and Ethics cycles are presented as help, yet they train him to confess, to doubt himself, and to fear any thought that does not match Church teaching.

As Quinn grows up, his emerging queer identity runs directly into the Church’s narrow rules. Love and attraction, which should be simple and human, become sources of shame and threat. At the same time, people on the outside, including those who have already left Scientology, begin to offer him a different picture of faith, loyalty, and freedom.

Set against the very real streets of Calgary, Shattered Faith shows how a high-control group can operate in plain sight above everyday life. It is not a distant exposé. It is a character-driven story about religious trauma, identity, and the slow, painful process of claiming a life that finally belongs to you.

For readers interested in cult dynamics, LGBTQ+ stories, and grounded Canadian fiction, Shattered Faith offers a tense, compassionate look at what it means to survive a church that demands everything.