It all started with the desperate urging of an internal voice, born from a pulse-pounding nightmare: Run. With that, Iris Ammons felt impelled to leave behind her husband, her children, her job, and her idyllic life. Her motive was never clear to her, just a notion that her entire life had become unfamiliar and that she had to get to the West Coast and the mystical village of Pitts Landing.

Similarly focused on the town is its devilishly charismatic cult leader Michael Roman. Michael cuts a bloody swath through his followers in order to get to the secret at the heart of the village.

As the coincidences pile up and the omens stack on top of one another like the bodies of Michael’s disciples, he and Iris find themselves at the center of a mystery that stretches back for generations and has effects that could be felt for centuries to come.

Lightfall is an erotic horror epic from gifted National Book Award winner Paul Monette, a master of combining thrills with intense emotion, no matter what the genre.