Rebecca Wait Livres

What kind of man kills his own family? A gripping, tender novel about fathers and sons

This novel will open your eyes and break your heart. It is the story of Emma's two brothers: the one who died five years ago, and the one who left home on the day of the funeral and never came back. It is the story of Emma's parents, who have been keeping the truth from her, and from each other. It is the story of Emma herself, caught in the middle and trying to work out how everything fell apart. It is a story you will want to talk about and one you will never forget.

"For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial. There is their mother, who takes a divide-and-conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is also their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything . . . As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they'd intended. They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments."--Publisher

On the bleak, windswept moors of northern England, a small religious cult has cut itself off from society, believing they have found meaning in a purposeless world. Led by their prophet Nathaniel, they eagerly await the end times. But when the prophet brings in a new recruit, Stephanie, along with her rebellious daughter Judith, the group's delicate dynamic is disturbed. Judith is determined to escape, but her feelings are complicated by a growing friendship with another of the children, the naïve and trusting Moses, who has never experienced the outside world. Meanwhile, another member is starting to have doubts of his own, unleashing a horrifying chain of events that will destroy the followers' lives.In the aftermath, the survivors struggle to adjust to the real world, haunted by the same questions: if you've been persuaded to surrender your individual will, are you still responsible for your actions? And is there any way back?

Fünf Jahre sind seit Kits Tod vergangen. Der jüngere Bruder Jamie lebt ein schattenhaftes Dasein, entfremdet von seiner Familie, gelähmt durch die Ereignisse der Vergangenheit und die unbeugsame Wut seines Vaters. Die Eltern sind in Schweigen versunken und froh, dass wenigstens Tochter Emma ein zufriedenes Leben zu führen scheint und offenbar gar nicht genau weiß, was damals geschehen ist. Doch als Emma älter wird, beginnt sie, unbequeme Fragen zu stellen, in der Hoffnung, das Geheimnis um Kits Tod endlich zu lüften. Als die Antworten ausbleiben, beschließt Emma, der Sache selbst auf den Grund zu gehen, und reißt von zu Hause aus, um ihren Bruder Jamie zur Rede zu stellen.