Leaving the saints: One child's story of survival and hope - Martha Beck (First UK edition)

"Leaving the Saints" is an unforgettable memoir about one woman’s lifetime struggle to overcome a dark secret buried in her childhood.

Growing up within the Mormon Church, bestselling author Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church’s high elders and her existence was framed by their strict code of conduct. Wearing her sacred garments, she married in a secret temple ceremony – but only after two Mormon leaders ascertained that her ‘past contained no flirtation with serious sins, such as committing murder or drinking coffee’. After Adam, her second child, was born, she and her husband left their graduate programmes at Harvard to return to Martha’s hometown of Provo, Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them.

However, soon after Martha began teaching at Brigham Young University, she began to see at first hand the Church’s ruthlessness as it silenced dissidents and masked truths that contradicted its beliefs. Most troubling of all, it brought to the surface memories of sexual abuse by one of the Church’s most prominent authorities. This book chronicles her difficult decision to sever her relationship with the faith that had cradled her for so long and to confront and forgive the person who betrayed her so deeply.