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    After the Fire
    After the Fire
    After the Fire
    Audiobook14 hours

    After the Fire

    Written by Will Hill

    Narrated by Devon Sorvari

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A teenager's world is shattered in a devastating confrontation between the cult she grew up in and the forces of the U.S. government. Father John controls everything inside The Fence. And Father John likes rules. Especially about never talking to Outsiders. Because Father John knows the truth. He knows what is right, and what is wrong. He knows what is coming. Moonbeam is starting to doubt, though. She's starting to see the lies behind Father John's words. Then a fire engulfs life as she knew it, and Moonbeam is forced outside The Fence into a world she does not recognize. Alternating between Moonbeam's life before the fire, and her time spent in a government-sanctioned facility afterward, After the Fire is a fascinating look at life inside a cult and its harrowing effects on survivors.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 2, 2018
    ISBN9781980010531
    Author

    Will Hill

    Before quitting his job in publishing to write Department 19, Will Hill worked as a bartender, a bookseller and a door-to-door charity worker. He grew up in the north-east of England, is scared of spiders, and is a big fan of cats. He lives in east London with his girlfriend, where he splits his time between staring out of the window and staring at a computer screen. The latter tends to be more productive.

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    Reviews for After the Fire

    4/5

    78 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Riveting and difficult to put down narrative from the point of view of a cult survivor. I'm not sure if this spoke to me so powerfully because I was a child in Texas when the Branch Davidian massacre took place, or if it's just really great writing, but if you are looking for a page turner with thoughtful psychological details, this book has it all.

      Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss.
    • 4/5
      I must admit this started out rather chaotic and I had a hard time really getting into it. However, as I continued and was able to figure out what was happening and where it was going, I really got into it and ended up very much liking this story. It goes back and forth from after the fire to before the fire and you learn just enough to keep you wanting more and more. Even when you realize what was really going on "before" you still can't look away. I definitely will be recommending this one, it surprised me how much I enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      When the government storms the Lord's Legion compound, only a handful of children survive the deadly fire. Moonbeam, one of the survivors, find herself in a psychiatric facility being questioned by Dr. Hernandez and Agent Carlyle. Moonbeam is scared, overwhelmed, and feeling guilt over the raid and her survival. Slowly, she begins to open up, telling stories of her life before the fire.This book was hard to put down. I loved that the author tackled the aftermath of the raid and fire. The psychiatry was fascinating. Moonbeams internal struggles felt completely real. It was hard to believe that she wasn't based on a real survivor's account. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I wasn’t sure that I’d like this book. It wasn’t a subject I was particularly interested in and I had never read anything by the author so I was reluctant to read this. I looked at the chapters and they alternated between before and after. I usually don’t like books that combine future and past. However, the author used this present and past technique to weave this unsettling tale into a fascinating story based on real events. I loved this book. It was beautifully written and was gripping from the beginning until the very end. The emotions of all the characters are exquisitely portrayed. You can feel the love, the hate, the fear, the strength and the weakness of each character and his or her feelings which produces a rich and touching tale. When thinking about cults, religious or otherwise, it is difficult to understand how followers are recruited and retained. This story shows the difficulty in maintaining hold over a group. It shows how evil people can twist and bend every fact to serve their own purpose and control people with fear and bullying tactics. I know this is fiction but it portrays the danger inherently in following false profits in cults and groups such as Scientology. It’s a chilling tale that makes me want to do further research into what happened with the Branch Davidians. This was an interesting read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
    • 2/5
      This is a book that I wanted to like. In fact, I was drawn to it because I had started seeing this book every where. Ok, the thing about "cult" books is that the cult leader has a big commanding presence. For me, I didn't really experience that from Father John. Yeah, he was crazy but he did not capture nor keep my attention. As I was reading, I kept waiting for the story to start. Somehow, it did not really sink in that the story had started with Moonbeam in therapy explaining the events leading up to her escape from the cult. I had trouble really staying in the moment while reading. After getting a third of the way into the story, I did skip ahead to the midway point. From here I started reading again but only got a few chapters done. Finally, I just "passed go" and proceeded to read the last dozen chapters of the story. It was here that I actually felt a connection to Moonbeam and the story and I felt the tide turn some with my feelings towards this book. Sadly, this book did not do anything for me.
    • 3/5
      I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.There was a fire, a terrible fire with gunshots and people dying all around her. But Moonbeam made it out. Now she has to figure out a life outside of the compound, outside of Father John's control, all while holding two secrets inside her that refuse to let her go.The opening is so powerful, it had me sucked in right away. Hill then brilliantly uses the trope of Before and After to build up the suspense. Before takes readers back to the events leading up to the fire of the title, while After details the life of Moonbeam after everything she has known is gone.Moonbeam is a great strong female narrator fighting to get her life back and help her fellow survivors while trying to deal with the two secrets inside her. She is telling her story to two other great characters, a psychologist and an agent, and readers get inside her head and her feelings through the first person narration.The very end felt a little pat, but I loved it anyway.This is a well-written, suspenseful look at a cult and how someone tries to rebuild their life when they suddenly find themselves on the outside.