The Followers

Judith has been visiting her mother, Stephanie, in prison once a month for the last eight years. But neither of them can bring themselves to talk about what brought them here - or about Nathaniel.

When Stephanie first meets him, she is a struggling single mother and Nathaniel is a charismatic outsider, unlike anyone she's ever known. When she decides to join the small religious cult he has founded high on the moors, Stephanie thinks she is doing the best for her daughter: a new home, a new life, a new purpose. As Stephanie slowly surrenders herself to Nathaniel's will, tensions deepen, faith and doubt collide, and a horrifying act of violence changes everything.

‘A restrained tour-de-force, 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 Followers is a remarkable novel.’ — Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

‘The serious questions that The Followers poses about love, faith and responsibility blend with Wait's propulsive plotting and the complicity she creates through the power of her writing to form a great surging shout of a novel … Without wanting to proselytise, I’d urge you to buy it.’ ― Guardian

‘Wait's confident plotting leads the reader towards a climax as satisfying as it is inevitable . . . The tenderness and the transformative nature of the ending . . . are truly moving.’ ― Independent on Sunday

’The Followers is a highly affecting and beautiful novel, both tender and brutal. It's a poignant examination of power, faith and family, and a story that stays with you long after you turn the last page’ — Nicci Cloke, author of Lay Me Down

‘A gripping tale of a violent sect in a flooded land, awaiting the end of the world, The Followers is also a beautifully moving story of the limits of faith and the power of family, those we make and those we choose. It will stay with me for a long time.’ — Peggy Riley, author of Amity and Sorrow

‘Such a suspenseful and compassionate book, never more so than in its feeling for certain characters, the disorderliness of their inner lives, their vulnerability. I thought it remarkable’ — Sunjeev Sahota, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Year of the Runaways

‘Gripping … devastating’ ― Daily Express

‘Rebecca Wait describes the world of The Followers with such vividness that I dreamt about her cold, misty moorland, and with such tenderness that the ending brought tears to my eyes’ — Alison Moore, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Lighthouse

‘A page-turning finish’ ― Daily Mail

‘A fascinating book about faith and love’ — Prima

‘A powerful book … a haunting and beautifully wrought novel with characters and a story that will stay with you long after you have closed the book itself.’ — We Love This Book

‘A moving, assured and intelligent novel’ — Jim Crace, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Harvest