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  • Published: 19 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9780593979198
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $34.99
Categories:

We Burn Daylight

A Novel





Waco, Texas 1993. People from all walks of life have arrived to follow the Lamb’s gospel—signing over savings and pensions, selling their homes and shedding marriages. They’ve come here to worship at the feet of a former landscaper turned prophet who is preparing for the End Times with a staggering cache of weapons. Jaye’s mother is one of his newest and most devout followers, though Jaye herself has suspicions about the Lamb’s methods—and his motives.

Roy is the youngest son of the local sheriff; a 14 year old boy with a heart of gold and a nose for trouble who falls for Jaye without knowing of her mother’s attachment to the man who is currently making his father’s life hell. The two teenagers are drawn to each other immediately and completely, but their love may have dire consequences for their families. The Lamb has plans for them all—especially Jaye—and as his preaching and scheming move them closer and closer to unthinkable violence, Roy risks everything to save Jaye.

Based on the true events that unfolded thirty years ago during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, Bret Anthony Johnston’s We Burn Daylight is an unforgettable love story, a heart-pounding literary page turner, and a profound exploration of faith, family, and what it means to truly be saved.

  • Published: 19 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9780593979198
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $34.99
Categories:

About the author

Bret Anthony Johnston

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Remember Me Like This, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns Prize as well as the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, Glimmer Train, and Virginia Quarterly among others. Formerly director of the Harvard University creative writing program, Johnston is now the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas in Austin.

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Praise for We Burn Daylight

Literature of the highest order . . . Even the most flashy stylistic flourishes [are grounded] in convincing, unexpected detail. . . . Ultimately, what keeps us reading a novel is the promise of revelation, and it’s in the smallest and most seemingly off-handed of its surprises that We Burn Daylight is most alluring.

The New York Times

Who decides what we believe? Johnston allows curious onlookers inside the compound and the hearts of Waco in a perfect marriage of history and art.

Booklist, starred review

Amid the plethora of stories about cults, this stands out.

Publishers Weekly

Symphonic and suspenseful, We Burn Daylight reimagines events at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March
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