The Followers [Paperback]

The Followersis a compassionate and suspenseful story of the dissolution of a family. Judith has been visiting her mother, Stephanie, in prison once a month for the last eight years. She still can't bring herself to talk with her mother about what brought them here--or about Nathaniel, the man whose religious cult almost cost them their lives.

When Stephanie first meets him, she is a struggling single mother and
Nathaniel is a charismatic outsider, unlike anyone she's ever known. In deciding to join the small religious cult he has founded, Stephanie thinks she is doing the best thing for her daughter: a new home, a new purpose.

Judith and Stephanie are initiated into a secret society whose followers must obey the will of a zealous prophet. As Stephanie immerses herself in her new life, Judith slowly realizes the moral implications of the strict lifestyle Nathaniel preaches. Tensions deepen, faith and doubt collide, and a horrifying act of violence changes everything. In the shattering aftermath, it seems that no one is safe.

Powerful, gripping, and impossible to forget,The Followersis a novel about
love, hope, and identity that asks timely questions: Are we still responsible for our actions if we remake ourselves in someone else's image? And can there be a way back?USPraise forThe Followers

A profoundly unsettling, brilliantly executed, and deeply humane depiction of a slow slide toward an unspeakable act, and the difficulty and necessity of finding a way to live in the aftermath.The Followersis a remarkable novel.
—Emily St. John Mandel, author ofStation Eleven

Wait's propulsive plotting and the complicity she creates through the power of her writing form a great surging shout of a novel.
—The Guardian

With skillful judgment, Wait shows us that not everyone can be trained or scared into submission. The tenderness and the transformative nature oflCĪ