When the Moon Turns to Blood

“In When the Moon Turns to Blood, [Sottile] uses the expertise she developed on projects such as the podcast Bundyland to turn one of the most sensational stories of the decade into a meditative look at how our surroundings influence us to the core.”

"This book, wide in scope and remarkable for its timeliness, is a riveting account of the entire case (which is currently awaiting trial), including an exquisitely researched history of LDS and its fringe offshoots."

"WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is a harrowing and fascinating tale of apocalyptic obsession and murder. Leah Sottile leads us down every head-shaking twist and turn of the case, an expert guide to the dark tributaries of religious extremism that run closer to the American mainstream than we’d ever like to believe."

“Through scrupulous reporting and a powerful narrative, Leah Sottile takes us into a dark world of dysfunctional families, perverted faith, false prophets and true psychopaths to show us that the human mind is the scariest realm of all. An important contribution to the literature of true crime.”

“Leah Sottile’s brilliant, unnerving WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD weaves the story of one family’s tragedy into an exploration of end-times radicalism that spans generations. It belongs on the short list of essential books about religious extremism and violence in the West.”

“Leah Sottile makes chilling murders into a gripping cultural study.”

"Beyond a crime story, Sottile weaves a ripper of tale - chilling, haunting, cautionary too! - that unveils the dangerous desire for acceptance on the fringes, and amid uncertain times. Insanely researched in scope, uniquely intimate in feel, buckle-up for this brave voyage into a tangled storm of ambition, lust and extremism."

"Leah Sottile is the writer every journalist dreams of being: A crackerjack investigator who has a nose for the telling details everyone else misses, and a gifted writer who can craft a moving literary narrative. Most of all, WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is an important book whose real subject is far more than a simple, horrifying murder case: It is a gut-wrenching fable about our upside-down, gaslit times, and what it tells us about ourselves and our susceptibility to the unreality of authoritarian conspiracism is profoundly disturbing. Everyone should read it."

“From one of the finest chroniclers of the U.S. Northwest working today, this book hooked me from the first line. In propulsive prose, Leah Sottile unspools a harrowing story of faith, violence, and fear. WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is a timely and provocative page-turner, as resonant as it is engrossing. In Sottile’s hands, a true crime yarn becomes a lens for examining the most pernicious aspects of far-right extremism in America.”

“Leah Sottile’s When the Moon Turns to Blood recounts a haunting true crime narrative about apocalyptic ways of thinking and a series of mysterious deaths that connected to them — and led investigators to a series of harrowing discoveries.”

“In the story of a former beauty queen and an apocalypse-obsessed fiction writer, their whirlwind romance, and their apparently murderous path, Sottile found a natural source for putting her reporting skills and dedication to tracking life on the West's fringes to the test.”

"I think it’s a critical book for understanding 21st century Mormonism. If there’s a Mormon Studies class held anywhere in the United States or the world, this is one of the books that needs to be added to the reading list. That’s how critical I think this book is."