This was a good read! The pace does move around a little and it's one of those books that won't be for everyone but I enjoyed it!

Quietly distressing and just a touch disturbing, this book pulls at readers minds and moralities. It's a very solid sophomore novel and possibly even better than the author's first.

Unfortunately, the license has expired for this book. Request if it can be renewed so that I can read it and provide genuine feedback.
I will rate it at 4 stars currently based on the 15% I had read.

Drew me right in to the people their lives in a cult.Well written eye opening found myself reading late into the night.#netgalley #harperperrenial.

Ooh time goes by and if i don't write the review right away...sigh. I'm trying to be better. The best i can do right now is give a star count...

The fault with this book is probably my own. I Love books about cults and this wasn't engaging enough for me.

The moment I heard that this was a cult book, I had to take my chances on Netgalley. Luckily they deemed me worthy 🙌

I’ve always wanted a cult book that takes place in the cult at the moment. Not before it’s formed or after it’s broken up. I want all the weird, dark happening as they happen real time. While The Burning Season is less thriller and more character focus, it was just as terrifying as one.

I thought of this as the modern equivalent of Victorian birthing situations where all the men are outside, smoking and celebrating, while the soon-to-be-mother does all the worth without any of the credit. Rosemary lives in a community that believes God lights houses on fire to teach lessons. That husbands can have divine visions that force his wife to contort into strange shapes to avoid it coming to fruition. That forces women to be docile.

Unsurprisingly this doesn’t sit well with Rosemary. But as she’s trying to atone for past mistakes, she feels as if it’s her only option. But slowly she begins to question the teachings that promote a lack of autonomy, overlook hypocrisy, and overall don’t benefit her in any way. While it could’ve been easy to dislike Rosemary for just staying, I really enjoyed her. I relished how she would rebel against her constraints consistently.

It can be a tough read at times, but the journey is worth it. Wisdom’s writing was dreamy, a quality I always adore when I find it. It both balanced out the more nefarious aspects but also made it just a little more scary.

The Burning Season should be on the list of anyone who says they love cult books, deep introspection, and close-up of how religion can be used to support just about any personal goal.

The Burning Season was a fascinating story that dives into religious fanaticism and cult behavior. I liked that the characters were unlikable as it kept me engaged in the story. I think I would’ve loved to read this story from the POV of each character. The pacing was a little off but this story is definitely more character driven vs. plot driven. Readers who enjoy twisty cult stories will like this one!

Where is the line between a religious community and a cult? The difference between a miracle and the simulacrum of one? And how do you know something is God’s will versus man’s? This was quiet and compelling. I wasn’t entirely sure where it was headed, but I appreciated the tension along the way.

This kept my interest the entire time. I just wish the main character went out with a bang. The ending just fizzled out when the main character could have blown up the entire cult and got revenge.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have always been intrigued by cults, and I got a fascinating sneak peek into the lives of its members. Highly recommended!

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free, electronic copy of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Desperate to start over again and rekindle her relationship with her husband, Paul, Rosemary agrees to accompany him to the small, isolated town of Dawes, Texas. There, only followers of Papa Jake live and work, and Rosemary and Paul are immediately accepted into the fold of “believers”. But the surrounding towns do not want the community of Dawes, and they are constantly under threat. First, homes of Dawes residents’ burn down one by one, leaving the members to merely watch it burn, following “God’s way”. Then, a young mother in the town, Julie, is evicted by the townspeople, leaving her newborn baby behind, allowing her husband to marry his mistress. When Rosemary cannot provide Paul the baby he so desperately desires, she begins to fear that the Dawes community will judge her for being unable to provide for her husband, and she will be at risk for retribution from her husband, Papa Jake, and God Himself.
“Burning Season” by Alison Wisdom is a novel focused on a cult and its practices, which of course, always intrigues me. Papa Jake is the charming leader, full of “healing hands” that “do God’s work”, taking in the abandoned and the lost. Paul and Rosemary join the community soon after they are married, at Paul’s request, both looking for somewhere to belong.
The story is told from Rosemary’s perspective, and the reader experiences a full immersion into cult society; the complete naiveté and innocence of young Rosemary, the manipulative powers of Papa Jake, and the complete patriarchal society that is Dawes. Think “The Handmaid’s Tale”, with “The Leftovers”, combined with Wisdom’s own unique spin.
“The Burning Season” is a cult novel, yes, but the underlying meanings are also so poignant. Patriarchy, religion, marriage and child bearing are at the forefront, and they bring such powerful meaning and relevance to the plot that no reader will be left unaffected. Wisdom provides an entertaining novel with deep, thought-provoking messages. Told beautifully, with well defined, exceedingly flawed characters, “Season” is creative and powerful, in all the right ways.

The summary of this book really intrigued me, but once I started, I was having a hard time getting into it.
Sadly I DNF. I just couldn't connect with the book

The premise of this novel was so interesting, but unfortunately the writing and pacing felt off to me.

What a story! Compulsively readable, I finished this book in a day and a half. I've always been fascinated by the idea of religious cults, how some people can be brought into what, from the outside, clearly looks not quite right. I enjoyed the book being told from Rosemary's perspective, her permissiveness to her husband, her human weaknesses and her strengths all being laid bare.. All of these together told a story of religious zeal, the lengths one will go in order to save a marriage, and the breaking point we each have within us. Highly recommend this book!!

A beautifully written book that has a lot to unpack. It is a little Handmaiden-ish, but also has that Texas grit to it. We can really understand the characters and their struggles. I'd heartily recommend this to a book club because it would provoke so much discussion. It feels close to reality, but one hopes that it is not.

Transcript of my review, posted in video format to TikTok and Instagram: I read The Burning Season by Alison Wisdom — thank you HarperCollins for sending me a digital advanced reader copy through NetGalley. This is actually the first arc that I ever requested, and I am so glad that it was this beautiful novel. It was pitched as a Texan Midsommar, and while it does have that surface-level similarity with a crumbling relationship facing religious extremism, it also has that same atmosphere of unease. There’s this feeling that someone is always keeping secrets from the narrator, Rosemary, that someone is always lying to her. The imagery and the prose is just so rich and atmospheric and gorgeous. I did want to see more of Rosemary connecting with other women — whether they’re other women in the Church of Dawes or other women out in the big bad world — as opposed to men. The ending is kind of abrupt, but, ultimately, the plot isn’t the most important piece of this novel. The Burning Season is about Rosemary, her confusion and guilt and love, and it’s a fantastic character study of an everyday person who gets swept up by an isolated, extremist religious community. I highly recommend picking this one up on its publication day, July 5, 2022. Okay thank you bye.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Literary Fiction

Rosemary is married to her college lover, Paul. When their marriage is in trouble the couple joins a religious cult formed by a young pastor called Papa Jake. This cult or community is governed by some strict and stringent rules and regulations that are set by Papa Jake. While Paul finds it easy to be a part of this community, Rosemary struggles big time to adapt to these fanatical rules. She becomes a friend of another woman, Julie. When the occurrence of fires kills several members of the community, Rosemary finds herself responsible to take care of Julie’s daughter, Lilly. Eventually, Rosemarie will decide to face her fears and insecurities and take all the steps needed to free herself.

The Burning Season is the story of human struggle. The concept behind the crazy beliefs and this closeted cult made the story interesting. The book is narrated from the main character’s point of view in a first-person style. The narration depends a lot on the stream of consciousness form of storytelling. This can be either a plus or bothersome depending on the reader’s taste. Rosemary is not a loveable character, yet she is awfully honest in her narration. When she cheated on her husband she explicitly said that she feels no feeling of guilt or shame. The only burden for her is keeping the thing a secret. I didn’t like Paul’s character in some situations especially when he knew that his wife cheated on him again. He was OK with it because it was not the first time! Papa Jake was a meaty character obviously. This is what you expect from the leader of a cult. The man is so crazy that according to him even calling firefighters is against God’s will!

The story is decent with an exciting premise. The characters' likeability is questioned and depends on the reader’s taste and preferences. At times the pace seemed to slow down in some parts but then picked up in other scenes. I feel readers who like to read about religious cults will enjoy this book the most.

Many thanks to the publisher Harper Perennial and Paperbacks, Harper Perennial, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

This is a complicated book for me to review. I didn’t find it engaging and struggled to continue. I feel like Rosemary rambled at times and that detracted from the story. I did appreciate the ending. But this is a time where I think a book doesn’t need an epilogue. I’m learning that maybe religious cult books aren’t for me because I want so much more from them - things that aren’t realistic.

There’s a time in Texas summer afternoons where the heat becomes almost hypnotic. It’s so humid that it’s hard to breathe, the sound of cicadas in the trees is deafening, and you yearn for the relief of a breeze, no matter how brief. Reading The Burning Season felt a little like living through one of those afternoons: languid, dreamlike, inevitable. The prose unspooled slowly and I was entranced by it, even as events in the novel made me want to shake the heroine and snap, “Do something!” But Rosemary’s self-imposed stasis is one of the things that makes her such a realistic heroine, and I was on her side even while her decisions frustrated me. She is a believably flawed and fascinating character.

This is a cult novel, but if you’re reading for juicy revelations or shocking twists and turns, you’re in the wrong place. This is a chillingly realistic take on what joining a cult would be like, a slow moving examination of religion and misogyny rather than a book full of shocks and thrills. The author loosely based this on a cult started by alumni of her (and my) alma mater, Baylor University, and the story explores what leads people to abandon everything they know and devote themselves to a life of little pleasure and intense religious devotion. Rosemary’s life is sparse and bleak, hemmed in by her husband’s desire for a child, the church’s control, and the monotony of Dawes itself, flat and hot and barren. The real dangers of the church in Dawes arise from the believers’ acceptance of their faith’s increasingly strenuous demands and their ability to rationalize anything in the name of God.

I do wish that the ending had been less abrupt—some of the revelations at the end I felt like I needed more time (and pages) to process. I also found Caroline’s character to be absolutely fascinating, and I wish that we had spent more time with her. But on the whole, I found this book compelling and disturbing, and I relished the slow, beautiful prose. I’ll definitely be reading whatever Wisdom writes next.

What just happened to me. I could not pull myself away from this book. It made me stay up past my bed time for every single one of three days I was reading it. I love reading novels with any sort of cultish element and this did not disappoint.

I was so furious sometimes and couldn’t help but feel some second hand Stockholm syndrome because I felt so immersed in the main character’s life. This is weird and twisty and I loved every minute of it. The epilogue was a bit atmospheric and I’m not sure if I missed a point there but there’s no way to be sure because like I said this is weird!

This felt very much like Godshot but a little less graphic and from an adult perspective instead of a child. If you liked Godshot or The School for Good Mothers, you should definitely give this one a shot.