Rating: 4/5
Review:
Well written and chilling
I thought this was a very good book. It is well written and involving, with important things to say.
The story concerns the induction of Stephanie and Judith, a struggling single mother and her teenage daughter, into a small, isolated community on the Yorkshire moors. The cult there is led by Nathaniel, a "prophet" who uses a mixture of charm, emotional manipulation, religious fundamentalism and violence to enforce his will. It's a rather bleak and oppressive tale, but very well done so that the characters and the story's seemingly inevitable progression toward a dreadful climax kept me hooked.
Rebecca Wait writes very well: she paints very convincing portraits of her characters and a chillingly believable picture of how someone like Nathaniel creates and sustains his oppression and manipulation of the members of the cult. There is a necessary and refreshing leaven of teenage sarcasm and rebellion in Judith and of genuine, if naïve, goodness in Moses, another child born into the cult who befriends her, and later a hopeful and redemptive note which I found genuinely affecting.
This isn't an easy read at times, but it's a good one which will leave you with a lot to think about and a clear if distressing insight into manipulative, domineering behaviour and the internal dynamics of cults like this. Recommended.
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