The Last Housewife
Book Feature - The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
HBL Note: I am fascinated by cults. I love the podcast A Little Bit Culty, I’ve been sucked into the countless cult documentaries including The Vow on HBO, Wild Wild Country on Netflix, The Deep End on Hulu, the documentary that started my interested in all of these: Going Clear, which I saw at a documentary film festival called True/False in Columbia, MO. I’m interested in how people get recruited into them, the tactics used to keep people there, and the process of “waking up” from the cult.
THE LAST HOUSEWIFE by Ashley Winstead piqued my interest when I read that it was about a woman determined to take down a powerful cult, no matter the cost. I couldn’t help but think of Sarah Edmondson when I heard that description, the co-host of A Little Bit Culty and one of the “stars” of The Vow who helped take down the so-called self-help cult known as NXIVM. Scroll down to read more about Shay Evans, the protagonist in THE LAST HOUSEWIFE, and her experience escaping a cult (and her friends who weren’t as lucky.)
Book Feature - The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
Book Feature - The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
From the publisher:
While in college in upstate New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were the only ones who managed to escape. Now, eight years later, Shay's built a new life in a tony Texas suburb. But when she hears the horrifying news of Laurel's death―delivered, of all ways, by her favorite true-crime podcast crusader―she begins to suspect that the past she thought she buried is still very much alive, and the predators more dangerous than ever.
Recruiting the help of the podcast host, Shay goes back to the place she vowed never to return to in search of answers. As she follows the threads of her friend's life, she's pulled into a dark, seductive world, where wealth and privilege shield brutal philosophies that feel all too familiar. When Shay's obsession with uncovering the truth becomes so consuming she can no longer separate her desire for justice from darker desires newly reawakened, she must confront the depths of her own complicity and conditioning. But in a world built for men to rule it―both inside the cult and outside of it―is justice even possible, and if so, how far will Shay go to get it?
Book Feature - The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
