After We Were Stolen: A Novel

She may have escaped from the cult, but how does she free herself from the trauma of her past?

One night, Avery is awoken by a fire consuming her family’s compound; she runs away with her cult brother Cole, hiding in the woods and then in a school gym for weeks. After police apprehend them for shoplifting, a horrific discovery is made - their entire lives have been a lie and they were actually kidnapped as children, taken by the cult leaders they knew as Mum and Dad.

Cole is quickly reunited with his family and permanently separated from nineteen-year-old Avery, who is taken to a women’s shelter when no family comes forward. Avery isn’t certain who survived the Bakelite cult fire or, more importantly, who set it. As she tries to move past the lies and the emotional and physical trauma of her childhood, the events of that fateful night come bursting back into the news, and a police investigation throws Avery back into the spotlight. The memories of that night and her former life threaten to undo all the progress she’s made, but she must uncover the truth about the fire to truly be set free.

‘Brooke Beyfuss’s After We Were Stolen kept me feverishly turning pages, anxious and eager to find out what happened to Avery and Cole as they emerge from a life they never asked for and into one they’re totally unprepared to navigate.’ - Melanie Abrams, author of Meadowlark

‘After We Were Stolen is an intelligent and heartrending story of vulnerability, power, resistance, and redemption. An excellent read that is sure to be a favourite book club pick.’ - Rebecca Taylor, author of The Secret Next Door