Brides of Eden

Book excerpt: In our defense, I can say only that nothing seemed so terribly strange in the beginning... When, in 1903, the fiery preacher Joshua arrives in sleepy Corvallis, Oregon, Eva Mae -- and the whole town -- is never the same again. Joshua is wonderful. He's charismatic. Insisting on simplicity, he commands his converts to burn their possessions. Demanding devotion to Christ, he tells them to abandon their personal ties. But there's a surge of violence rising, and before it's over, families will be ripped apart and lives will be destroyed. Eva Mae's gripping true story is a stranger-than-fiction tale of a turn-of-the-century apocalyptic cult.