Beautiful Revolutionary

The thrilling new novel, inspired by Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, from the author of The Love of a Bad Man.

It's the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself. Minister's daughter. Atheist. Independent woman. Frustrated wife. Bitch with a bleeding heart.

Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet as the world is rocked by warfare and political assassinations, by racial discrimination and social upheaval, she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny's passive ways - and anxious for a saviour.

Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a revolutionary church called Peoples Temple. As Evelyn grows closer to Jones, her marriage is just the first casualty of his rise to power.

Meticulously researched, elegantly written, and utterly engrossing, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. In masterful prose, Woollett painstakingly examines what happens when Evelyn is pulled into Jones's orbit - an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.

'Woollett reclaims victims' narratives from sensationalist headlines and re-educates her readers through sharp, expertly crafted fiction.'
-Anne Joyce, Irish Times

'It's a novel that benefits from deep research worn lightly, and from Laura Elizabeth Woollett's sensitivity to the perversity of human character and behaviour.'
-The Saturday Age

'Laura Elizabeth Woollett's Beautiful Revolutionary grabs attention from the beginning, not with narrative hooks but with the sheer penetration of its prose. Woollett's debut novel is an imaginative refiguring of the Jonestown massacre story ... A truly exciting writer.'
-Ed Wright, Weekend Australian