Title: After the Fire
Author: Will Hill
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
Wow. This absolute page-turner is both heartbreaking and life-affirming, as the fifteen-year-old narrator tells the story of her life in a strict religious cult, and what happens when a government raid on their fortified compound brings everything she knows to an end.
Moonbeam has lived in the The Holy Church of the Lord’s Legion compound for as long as she can remember. Her father died when she was young, and she remembers the day her mother was banished from the cult and sent to live in the outside world, full of danger and unbelievers and government agents who want to capture and torture the followers of the True Path (according to their leader, Father John). Moonbeam stayed, and learned to fit in without her mother’s protection. She knows how to hide her doubts, protect her friends, and defend the community against outsiders.
When the government storms the compound, everything burns. The cult members use their guns and training, but they can’t fight soldiers and tanks. Moonbeam is appalled at the loss of life and the destruction of her home as she makes her way through the fighting to save the children she cares about.
In the outside world, Moonbeam joins the few survivors in hospital, and begins to tell her story to the psychiatrist in charge of her case. In as series of flashbacks and conversations, we learn about her experiences – about Father John’s absolute power within the cult, about daily life in the compound, and about her relationship with Nate, a newcomer to the community. We also discover the questions she won’t answer – what she was doing throughout the raid, what she knows about Father John, and why her mother made sure she was promised to the cult leader as a wife, even when she was trying to get them both out of the compound.
The answers come slowly, alongside Moonbeam’s interactions with the other child survivors – some of whom are angry that they weren’t taken to heaven with the cult members who died.
This is an absolutely gripping story, inspired by the disastrous 1993 government raid on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. It is a human story with an extremely sympathetic and inspiringly strong narrator, and I never stopped cheering for her – even when some of her secrets are revealed.
I can’t recommend this book enough!
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YA review: After the Fire cross-posted to GoodReads.
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