Heavenly Deception — Maggie Brooks

'Brooks writes with tremendous warmth, a natural knack for dialogue and such persuasive narrative skill that, travelling further into the cult's clutches, your brain feels insidiously sapped... It begs to be read; resists caricature; and has you fumbling, like its principal character, in a ragbag of knowledge, attempting to fend off that philosophical nonsense which marshmallows the brain' NEW STATESMAN When Lucy goes missing, her sister Carmen sets out to find her. The search leads Carmen into the closed world of an enigmatic religious cult and, in the week that follows. Carmen's induction into the society of ever-smiling, singing people with strangely vacant eyes leaves her raging, confused, exhausted and suspicious. Is this a dream of perfect love, or a sinister manipulation? Heavenly Deception is a remarkable and profoundly disturbing portrayal of fanaticism. 'A powerful study in psychic manipulation, and a well-aimed ana hard-hitting story' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS 'The sinister mind-bending practised by the Moonies is a serious subject, and Miss Brooks writes about it with a compelling, crusading energy that makes for a convincing, disturbing and valuable novel' DAILY TELEGRAPH.