Rabenfrauen

Grösitz, summer 1959: best friends Ruth and Christa are enjoying their last vacation before graduation when they meet Erich, one of a group of free-church Christians camped near a stream on the edge of town. Both girls fall for him, and what follows will alter the course of their friendship - and their lives - permanently.

Decades later, Ruth's daughter Anne, newly bereaved after the death of her life partner, begins to piece together what really happened that summer, uncovering her mother's connection to a sect whose grip on its members went far beyond faith.

Told across three interwoven narrative strands - young Ruth, older Ruth, and Anne - Rabenfrauen is a slow-burning novel about the long reach of a cult's influence across generations of women in one family.