Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons

Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future

Elizabeth Esther · 213 pages

"I was raised in a homegrown, fundamentalist Christian group--which is just a shorthand way of saying I'm classically trained in apocalyptic stockpiling, street preaching, and the King James Version of the Bible. I know hundreds of obscure nineteenth-century hymns by heart and have such razor sharp "modesty vision" that I can spot a miniskirt a mile away." In her memoir, readers will recognize que

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer · 438 pages

In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of this closed community and the lengths

Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church

Lauren Drain · 300 pages

"In the tradition of Escape and Stolen innocence, the first look behind the curtains of the Westboro Baptist Church, by a young woman cast out from its clutches"--Provided by the publisher. Lauren Drain's childhood seemed average American, but when her liberal-minded father set out to film a documentary about the audacious and cultish hate group, the Westboro Baptist Church, he found himself se

Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me

Ron Miscavige, Dan Koon · 256 pages

"David Miscavige, the Church of Scientology's current leader and successor to founder L. Ron Hubbard, hasn't always ruled with an iron fist. It was his father, Ron Miscavige, who first introduced his family to Scientology, and David embraced it immediately, even as young boy. Years later, Ron could only watch with dismay as his bright, carefree son transformed into the leader he is today. Ruthless

Cult Insanity: A Memoir of Polygamy, Prophets, and Blood Atonement

Irene Spencer

Life for Irene Spencer was a series of devastating disappointments and hardships. Irene's first book, Shattered Dreams, is the staggering chronicle of herstruggle to provide for her children in abject poverty and feelings of abandonment each time her husband left to be with one of his other wives. Irene was raised to believe polygamy was the way of life necessary for her ticket to heaven. The har

I Fired God: My Life Inside - and Escape from - the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult

Jocelyn R. Zichterman

This book is a compelling memoir and investigation into the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse. Jocelyn Zichterman was born, raised, married into, and finally, with her family, fled the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Founded by the fiery preacher Bob Jones, with several hundred thousand, IFB members are told they must not associate with memb

Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult

Jayanti Tamm · 288 pages

In this colorful, eye-opening memoir, Jayanti Tamm offers an unforgettable glimpse into the hidden world of growing up "cult" in mainstream America. Through Jayanti's fascinating story--the first book to chronicle Sri Chinmoy--she unmasks a leader who convinces thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him, and throngs of celebrities (Sting, Pope John Paul II

Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology

Marc Headley · 389 pages

The author details the horrors of his slave-like existence as a captive Scientologist whose parents were in the organization and who was forced to attend Scientology schools, do Scientology course work, and who, out of desperation, joined the sea-org at fifteen. The punitive, coercive, and sadistic nature of the organization and the horrors he lived through are vividly told in a chilling, conversa

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple

Deborah Layton · 309 pages

From Waco to Heaven's Gate, the past decade has seen its share of cult tragedies. But none has been quite so dramatic or compelling as the Jonestown massacre, in which the Reverend Jim Jones and 913 of his disciples of the Peoples Temple perished. In Seductive Poison, Deborah Layton writes about the Peoples Temple as it has never been written about before: with the keen hindsight and insider persp

His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy

Susan Ray Schmidt · 445 pages

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

Jenna Miscavige Hill, Lisa Pulitzer · 416 pages

Jenna Miscavige Hill was raised to obey. As the niece of the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, she grew up at the center of this highly controversial and powerful organization. But at twenty-one, Jenna made a daring break, risking everything she had ever known and loved to leave Scientology once and for all. Now she speaks out about her life, the Church, and her dramatic escape, goin

Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood

Claire Hoffman · 284 pages

"When Claire Hoffman's alcoholic father abandons his family, his struggling wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven--Iowa--to live in Maharishi's national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire's mother, Transcendental Meditation--Maharishi's method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life--promises

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley · 253 pages

Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as

Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints

Sam Brower · 323 pages

From the private investigator who cracked open the case that led to the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the maniacal prophet of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), comes the page-turning, horrifying story of how a rogue sect used sex, money, and power disguised under a fac Œade of religion to further criminal activities and a madman's vision.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing

Kyria Abrahams · 339 pages

Not Without My Sister

Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring · 432 pages

Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear

Jinger Duggar Vuolo · 221 pages

Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons

George Pendle · 368 pages

A lonely misfit born into a wealthy Pasadena family, as a boy Parsons read science fiction and launched rockets in his backyard. By his early twenties, he was a leader of Caltech's "Suicide Squad," the motley band of young enthusiasts who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But his visionary imagination also led him into the occult community thriving in 1930s Los Angeles, and when fantasy's pul

All Who Go Do Not Return: A Memoir

Shulem Deen · 299 pages

Shulem Deen was raised to believe that questions are dangerous. As a member of the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the US, he knows little about the outside world--only that it is to be shunned. His marriage at eighteen is arranged and several children soon follow. Deen's first transgression--turning on the radio--is small, but his curiosity leads him to the library, and later t

I Am Hutterite: The Fascinating True Story of a Young Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Heritage

Mary-Ann Kirkby · 241 pages

The Polygamist's Daughter

Anna LeBaron, Leslie Wilson · 313 pages

A memoir from "Anna LeBaron, daughter of the ... polygamist and murderer Ervil LeBaron. Ervil's criminal activity kept Anna and her siblings constantly on the run from the FBI. Often starving, the children lived in a perpetual state of fear--and despite their numbers, Anna always felt alone. Would she ever find a place she truly belonged? Would she ever be anything other than the polygamist's daug

My Life in Orange

Tim Guest · 320 pages

Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake-Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia

Dennis Covington · 240 pages

It is Scottsboro, Alabama, in the fall of 1991. A snake-handling preacher by the name of Glendel Buford Summerford has just tried to murder his wife, Darlene, by snakebite. At gunpoint, he forces her to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes. She is bitten twice and nearly dies. The trial, which becomes a sensation throughout southern Appalachia, echoes familiar themes from a troubled secular wor

A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today

Kate Bornstein · 258 pages

In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw. Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. W