Cult Fiction
Want to read about cults in fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers? Check out these titles for stories of people drawn in by charismatic leaders and promises of community. (Created April 2026)
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Rouge
A woman tangles with a cultlike spa and her own obsession with physical beauty in the wake of her mother’s death in this hypnotic tour de force. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Mood Swings
In a society that has eradicated all animals for the safety of humanity, Jenlena, capitalizing on other people's grief by cosplaying as dogs for pay, starts an affair with a California billionaire who exposes her to a new understanding of wealth, power and gender economy as the world hurtles toward its alleged salvation. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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We Are Light
Blees makes her English language debut with a riveting experimental novel about a commune where the members’ belief that they can live on light and love alone proves fatal for one of them. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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O Sinners!
A journalist struggles to uncover a mysterious sect’s secrets—and his own...A well-guided journey along the boundary between faith and doubt. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Acting Class
Ten strangers are brought together under the tutelage of John Smith, a mysterious and morally questionable leader. (NoveList)
Format: Graphic Novel
Availability: Available
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Cuckoo
In 1995, seven queer teens abandoned at a desert conversion camp face an ancient evil that haunts them for years, forcing them to reunite to stop it before it consumes the world. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Make Me Better
A lonely woman seeks healing and kinship in an isolated island community in this slow-simmering horror. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
Availability: On order
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Black Sheep
Heroine Vesper is a waitress with a bad job and a worse attitude who lost all her friends and family when she left her insular religious community six years ago, looking for freedom and her absent father, who mysteriously disappeared from her life. She’s sure she’ll never be allowed to return—until she receives an unexpected wedding invitation: her close friend and cousin Rosie is marrying the boyfriend Vesper left behind. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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A Thousand Natural Shocks
Dash, a reporter in Monterey, California, is desperate to outrun his past. During the day, he investigates the reemergence of a long-dormant serial killer. At night, he becomes entangled with a criminal cult that promises a pill to erase his traumatic memory. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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We Burn Daylight
In Waco, Texas, 1993, Roy, the 14-year-old son of the local sheriff, and Jaye, whose mother is part of a doomsday cult led by the Lamb, are immediately drawn to each other, but their love may have dire consequences for their families as the Lamb brings them closer and closer to unthinkable violence. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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