The Cult Called Freedom House
By Stephanie Evelyn

The Cult Called Freedom House is the first in a new series from author Stephanie Evelyn. Freedom House introduces us to Sophia Rey, a police officer with a tortured past, who goes up against a cult taking young people from the streets and hiding dark secrets.

Samantha, fourteen years old, has to deal with an alcoholic mother and her series of boyfriends. She is desperate to escape home and find something else. One day, she comes across a man on a grocery run for what sounds like Samantha’s ideal place. Freedom House. To her, it sounds like a place full of light, love and hope, and she eagerly follows him to the cult.

There was a lot of potential in the book. We’re given two promising female leads, both troubled, one searching for redemption and the other seeking love. Throw in a creepy cult with a mysterious leader, and this is a book I really wanted to love.

Instead, I felt sort of let down by it.

Firstly, what could have been a good twist is revealed to the reader in the first chapter. Okay, fine, we get to see straight away how evil Cyrus is. When we were introduced to Samantha, I felt excited; she could be a really interesting character to follow, but she falls flat. For much of the book, she comes across as passive, and it’s hard to understand exactly why she – or if not her, the other cult members – actually stay at Freedom House. 

 Okay, to a point, she is a damaged character, and it’s clear she’s willing to do anything to stay there, even ignore the darkness of the place. But there’s nothing really to Cyrus. There’s no real indication of what draws people to him and why people stay. 

With Sophia, we have another view, as she grapples with ways to prove herself to the department she works for. But again, aspects of this character felt flat. Information about her past is repeated over and over, along with her boss’s own history with a similar cult in the area. But these events are presented as if they’re linked, when they don’t really seem to be.

I wanted to feel invested in these characters, wanted to feel like I was rooting for them, but the repetition left me feeling a bit uneasy.

There were also some issues with pacing. It felt like it moved too rapidly, with no identifiable timeframe, and the reader is yanked from one location to another with little grounding to set them up.

Some elements of the book were done well, and when the horror came into play, it worked. Evelyn is clearly skilled with tension and the climax was nightmare-inducing. The descriptions were strong, and I would have loved to have seen more of them, which would have also helped with the pacing. It’s clear Evelyn is a talented writer, and the issues in the book could have been resolved with a bit more editing. I do want to read the sequel, as I can see Evelyn really improving, as many writers do.

Purchase on Amazon

Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt

I purchased this e-book directly from Amazon.