Book one for this whole cult examination is Katee Robert’s The Devil’s Daughter. To be perfectly honest, this wouldn’t usually be my first book when doing a deep dive into the literary imagination. It is a procedural romance, and it fits fairly squarely in the more traditional “trust authority, cults are bad” positioning of these stories. Being Katee Robert, there were some expectations that were flipped on their head, and there were some hot sex scenes. In the end, I’m glad it was my first, because it eases me into this exploration of the cultural imagination.

Cults for Shorthand as a High Control Group

One thing this book made me realize is that cults are great creative shorthand for a high-control group. The author doesn’t have to describe every element of control because our social memory holds various forms. This allows the author to sketch out the cult and only go in-depth in story-relevant areas as opposed to spending pages describing how the leader gained each aspect of control. When I try to write about cults, my first instinct is to explain how every aspect of the cult works. I spend my time writing what sounds more like a handbook for the cult than an actual story, and it’s unnecessary. Unless I’m breaking expectations, most of the details can live in the reader’s imagination.

This means you have to know how to trigger the reader’s imagination and what exactly you’re triggering — which I expect to become clearer as I read more books about cults.

But let’s dive into this book and see where it lies in the categories I thought would be important:

Warning: this will have spoilers!

POV Character

The POV switches between characters throughout the book. We mostly get Eden and Zach’s POV, with a few clips from the victims of the serial killers. I realize not all cult books will have serial killers, so this transitions nicely from my previous series on serial killers. Where do these characters position in the cult?

Daughter of the Founder

Eden is the daughter of the cult leader. She grew up in the cult, was abused more than any of the regular cult members, and escaped when she turned 18. She became an FBI agent. Eden is called back to the small town of Clear Springs when a picture of the first murdered girl is sent to her. She recognizes the tattoos on the girl and aspects of the death as part of the ritual of Persephone the cult enacts every year. Writing from the view of the child of the founder was not a perspective I had considered when I first went into this, but it works powerfully two key ways:

• It upholds the cultural imagination of the blameless versus evil. Even if the cultural imagination is that the leader is to blame and everyone else is a victim, there is a certain hierarchy to that victimhood. People who join the cult as adults still have some accountability, especially if they bring children into the cult. Children who join of their own free will (usually teenagers) have less accountability but still make some decisions in their life. Children of cult members are absolutely blameless. They had no choice in joining the cult. Furthermore, they are raised not knowing any other life is possible. They are blameless not only in joining the cult, but in any actions they might commit while under the cult’s influence.
• The child of not just a cult member but the leader is likely privileged to more knowledge of the leader and cult than many other members. This can be a great way to add tension and reader knowledge about the leader’s strengths, weaknesses, and endgame.

Ex Cult Member

Though this is the same person (Eden), it’s important to note that she has three distinct points of view that are combined in this story:

In The Devil’s Daughter we see there are aspects of Eden’s trauma that she hasn’t dealt with, and she can only heal those wounds by returning to the cult and gaining power over her mother. This is where fiction steps in and becomes a powerful tool. Obviously, we don’t want real-life cult members returning to their cults where their overbearing mothers may kidnap or kill them. But for a story, it’s quite satisfying to have that “win” for the abused daughter.

Law Enforcement

This book had two types of law enforcement: the FBI agent, who has personal experience taking down cults and serial killers, and the small-town cop whose primary job is to keep the peace between the cult’s commune and the suspicious townsfolk. Both are clearly the “good guys”. They love their town, want to keep people safe, and put others before themselves. Their biggest fault is giving in to their sexual urges during a case. This will probably be my biggest pet peeve while reading these books: law enforcement officers who don’t feel human. They are the protectors of social order; their motivations are clear and pure, and they act as an extension of social order as opposed to a complicated person figuring out what is right and wrong.

On the other end of things, you have the corrupt cop who exploits their position for their personal gain. While this book had both the good cop and the bad cop, I’d rather have more complex law enforcement characters. I understand the thriller romance genre does not leave room for moral character flaws. Eden and Zach’s character flaws related directly to the romance plot: each coming with mirroring trauma that made them push away relationships. Without those flaws, the romance wouldn’t have had tension. With too many other flaws, the story would have felt heavy and convoluted. Not a clean, satisfying genre read.

Cult Stage

The cult in this book was fully mature. It was a multigenerational cult with several children born into it, some of whom stayed and some of whom left when they became adults. The leader, Martha, had full control over her cult. There had been enough time for conflict between the cult and nearby town and for those conflicts to settle, allowing a tense co-existence.

The reader might not pick up on it until the end (though there are clues sprinkled throughout the book) but the cult is in a moment of power change: one of the younger cult members is trying to usurp the leader. In the end, the cult is still going strong, and the leader remains the same. We learn she probably knew of her follower’s plans and allowed her to act them out in order to maintain tighter control of the cult while also getting her daughter back. So we’re seeing the first signs of decay — an aging leader and revolting members — but the cult is still going strong at the end of the book.

Cult Focus

Elysia is a religious, alternative lifestyle cult based mostly on the Greek mythology of Persephone. However, like many cults, the leader picks and chooses her stories, folding in other religions as needed to maintain her power over her flock. Many aspects of the commune, such as the sexual purity and hard work/plain lifestyle, echoed Christian cults to me. But maybe that is just a common method of control and is not rooted in the religion.

Are you a good cult or a bad cult?

Elysia falls solidly in the bad cult camp. Although the leader is not directly responsible for the murders throughout the book, it is her teachings that inspired them and her power that allows them to continue. There seem to be some potentially beneficial aspects of the cult: the first victim ran away from her abusive father and stayed with the cult long enough to get a college recommendation that gets her away from town. However, the complexity of the cult is short-lived and not explored. Again, I chalk this up to the genre expectations.

Geographical Positioning

This is one of the aspects of cults I had not considered before but is important to this story. High-control groups depend on isolation, but there are several forms of isolation. An HCG could exist in the middle of a city, and many do. Positioning the cult just outside of a small town creates several narrative benefits.

• It creates a clear us/them boundary. There aren’t people who don’t care about the cult or haven’t heard about it. The cult is nearly the size of the town, making it a formidable foe for townspeople and law enforcement. This also means that everyone in town knows everyone who goes missing or joins the cult, making it more personal.
• The surrounding nature makes the two choices, town or commune, even starker. There is nowhere else for someone to go. This is especially helpful in the thriller genre as running into the cold desert makes for some heart-pounding scenes.
• It allows the comparison of small-town life to cult life. There are aspects of the small town that feel very cult-like. Zach is trying to maintain power. The people threatening to take matters into their own hand (rejection of law). And the lack of choice for young people. In another genre, this could be played up much heavier to force people to see their own “social chains” in small-town life.

Overall, The Devil’s Daughter was a fun read. I had a great time sussing out the killers. (A fun note, I thought the killer couple contained either of the two actual killers… I had not put them together as an option. Beth and Chase worked as a direct mirror to Eden and Zach, though. The dedicated cult member and corrupt cop in balance to the ex-member and heroic cop.) The relationship was satisfying and, as always, Robert’s sex was steamy. But I’m not sure I want books about cults that are fun reads. Although I can respect that, just as with serial killers, I want books that have a bit more bite and moral complexity. I want books that leave me wrecked and wondering: who am I and what is this world I live in?

1/2/2025

• Welliver, Hilary. “The Cult Phenomenon as Portrayed in Adolescent Literature.” The High School Journal 68, no. 2 (1984): 87–90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40365428.
• Hutchinson, Colin. “Cult Fiction: ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Communities in the Contemporary American Novel.” Journal of American Studies 42, no. 1 (2008): 35–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40464238.
• Engle, John. “Cults of Lovecraft: The Impact of H.P. Lovecraft’s Fiction on Contemporary Occult Practices.” Mythlore 33, no. 1 (125) (2014): 85–98. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26815942.
• Neal, Lynn S. “Suicide and CultUral Memory in Fictional Television.” Journal of Religion and Violence 1, no. 3 (2013): 322–42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26671410.

Title	Author	Year Published	Genre	Type of Cult	Status
Mister Magic	Kiersten White	2023			Read
Geek Love	Katherine Dunn	1989			Need to Re-read
Oryx and Crake	Margaret Atwood	2003			Read
The Girls	Emma Cline	2016
The Stepford Wives	Ira Levin	2002
The Chosen One	Carol Lynch Williams	2009
Jamaica Inn	Daphne du Maurier	1936
The Project	Courtney Summers	2021
The Shadow Over Innsmouth	H.P. Lovecraft	1936
Gather The Daughters	Jennie Melamed	2017
Seed	Lisa Heathfield	2015
Mr. Splitfoot	Samantha Hunt	2016
God Shot	Chelsea Bieker	2020
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly	Stephanie Oakes	2015
Survivor	Chick Palahniuk	1999
The Family	Marissa Kennerson	2014
Black Sheep	Rachel Harrison	2023
Jesus Song	R.R. Knudson	1974
Blinded by the Light	Robin F. Brancato	1978
The Cult	Max Ehrlich	1978
The Devil’s Daughter	Katee Robert	2017	Thriller/Romance	non-christian religious (Persephone)	Read
Vineland	Thomas Pynchon	1990
Mao II	Don DeLillo	1991
Bunny	Mona Awad	2019