Home

Explore the best Christian fantasy.

articles • library • reviews • podcast • webzine • store
Advertise Seek Review Questions?

Follow us on the socials.

How Reading Epic Fantasy Helps Me Be Brave
Articles | Josiah DeGraaf on Apr 9, 2021

All the Queen’s Sons
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Apr 9, 2021

Implicit Magic in Fantasy Fiction Can Stir Our Longing for Transcendent Myth
Articles | Elijah David on Apr 7, 2021

57. How Do Stories Help Us Imagine Suffering and the Hope of Resurrection? | Epic Resurrection, part 4
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Apr 6, 2021

The PRISM Conspiracy
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Apr 2, 2021

To Help Kids Learn Pop Culture Engagement, Parents Must Work Together
Articles | Jason Joyner on Mar 31, 2021

56. Which Biblical Qualities Empower Strong Female Characters? | with Elisabeth Wheatley
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Mar 30, 2021

Why We Long for Movies to Match Their Books
Articles | L.G. McCary on Mar 25, 2021

Lorehaven Features March 25–27 at Realm Makers Bookstore in St. Louis
News | Lorehaven on Mar 23, 2021

Songflight
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Mar 19, 2021

Library

Find fantastical Christian novels

fantasy | sci-fi | supernatural and beyond
All novels Search Add a novel
Explore all: Middle-grade books | Young-adult books | Adult books
Aelafas, Peco Gaskovski
The Centauri Survivors, Andrew J. Chamberlain
The Father's Tree, Crystal Jencks
The Mermaid's Sister, Carrie Anne Noble
The Watcher, Sara Davison
Etania's Worth, M. H. Elrich
Cinderella Spell, Laurie Lee
When Desperate Measures Are All You Have Left, J. C. Morrows
Fractures, James C. Joyner
Torch, R. J. Anderson
The Terran Summit, Anna Zogg
The Xerxes Factor, Anna Zogg
The Paradise Protocol, Anna Zogg
The Awakened, Richard Spillman
Reviews

Find fantastical Christian reviews

All reviews Request review Share review

All the Queen’s Sons
“All The Queen’s Sons from Elizabeth Kipps will delight both young and old fans of level-headed girls, charming princes, and lovely lands.”
—Lorehaven on Apr 9, 2021

The PRISM Conspiracy
“Mary Schlegel’s gentle sci-fi The PRISM Conspiracy offers an attractive blend of possibility and sweet romance.”
—Lorehaven on Apr 2, 2021

Songflight
“Songflight by Michelle M. Bruhn tells the gripping story of dragon singer Alísa, and is best for lovers of fantasy and dragons.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 19, 2021

Moonscript
“In Moonscript, H. S. J. Williams creates a classic fantasy and deeply weaves strong spiritual element into the world.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 12, 2021

Podcast

Get the Fantastical Truth podcast

Apple | Google | All subscribe links
Archives Feedback

57. How Do Stories Help Us Imagine Suffering and the Hope of Resurrection? | Epic Resurrection, part 4
Fantastical Truth, Apr 6, 2021

56. Which Biblical Qualities Empower Strong Female Characters? | with Elisabeth Wheatley
Fantastical Truth, Mar 30, 2021

55. Should Christians Embrace Cultural and Digital Enclaves? | with Austin Gunderson
Fantastical Truth, Mar 16, 2021

54. How Can Christian Fans React When Fantasy Creators Get Cancelled? part 2
Fantastical Truth, Mar 9, 2021

Webzine

Browse back issues (2018–2020)

Order back issues online!
SpecFaith

The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

site archives | statement of faith
New articles Questions? Pitch to us

The Beauty of Short Horror Films
Parker J. Cole, Mar 31

Banning Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mar 22

What Arouses Hatred of Fantastic Romantic Fiction?
Parker J. Cole, Mar 17

Here’s What Happened
Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mar 15

Beyond

Find more from Christian creators

Order the book! E. Stephen Burnett

Get exclusive shirts and beyond
in the Lorehaven store

Explore the book The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ

Does ‘Engaging Popular Culture’ Include Right-Wing Talk Radio?
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 9

Join My Livestream This Thursday: Seven Ways to Find Truth in Fantastic Stories
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 6

Home
Library
Reviews
Podcast
Webzine
SpecFaith
Store
Beyond Edit content
Lorehaven serves Christian fans by finding the best of Christian fantasy. Our free webzine, an online library, positive reviews, a thriving blog and community, and weekly podcast episodes help fans explore fantasy, science fiction, and other fantastical genres for the glory of Jesus Christ.
Subscribe free to Lorehaven
/ Library
“Tosca Lee’s thriller quests toward truth among apocalyptic madness.”
—Lorehaven review, spring 2019
Author:
Tosca Lee
Ages:
adult young adult
Genres:
science fiction
BookTags:
apocalyptic contemporary cults
Publisher:
Howard Books

The Line Between

Cult escapee Wynter Roth finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse her former cult taught her to fear all her life.
Tosca Lee · science fiction for adult, young adult readers · January 2019

When twenty-two-year-old Wynter Roth is cast out of self-contained doomsday cult New Earth, a mysterious outbreak of rapid early-onset dementia is already spreading across the nation.

As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life, convinced she’s made a terrible mistake. Until the night her sister, still a New Earth member, shows up with a set of medical samples that holds the key to decoding the disease, and Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play.

Now, as the power grid fails and the country descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.

Review of Featured Review: The Line Between

Tosca Lee’s thriller quests toward truth among apocalyptic madness.
Lorehaven Review Team, spring 2019

If you have ever hated cults—or God forbid, were trapped in any cult-like activity yourself—you’ll love to hate novelist Tosca Lee’s fictional New Earth International.

In Lee’s latest mid-apocalyptic novel, The Line Between, former cult member Wynter Roth, 22, is cast out of New Earth. (Already the Christian’s heart rages, for the cult’s very name is a Satanic slander against God’s future dwelling, as in Revelation 13:6.) Cult leaders proclaim Wynter an apostate and shut the Enclave’s gates behind her.

At least Wynter has started to prepare for this. She has begun to see past the cult’s evils and the lies of charismatic entrepreneur-turned-manipulator Magnus Theisen.

Like many real-life cult members, Wynter was brought into the group as a child. Her vulnerable mother was trying to escape a bad relationship and rebuild her life. And like other escapees, Wynter also fights to adapt to the modern world and healthy friendships as well as the seemingly simple task of thinking independently.

But unlike other cult escapees, Wynter faces an apocalypse—a real one—straight from any cult leader’s worst end-times predictions. In this doomsday, people across America are catching a virus that quickly turns into early-onset dementia. Literally, the world is going crazy. Victims crash their cars and attack one another. Power grids are on the fritz. Somewhere out there you may even find Russians colluding.

As it turns out, Wynter has the only biological samples that could lead to a cure.

Lee mixes chilling, cracking suspense with thoughtful character growth, as readers follow Wynter’s frightening present while also recalling her perma-frosted past. Each character leaps from the page, pressed by experienced storytelling hands.

Tosca Lee has created many multi-award-winning novels in biblical genres, such as Iscariot and Demon: A Memoir, and in supernatural genres, such as The Progeny and The Firstborn. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and children.

ToscaLee.com
@ToscaLee

Explore this novel at the Lorehaven Library.

Wynter herself feels just like a strong yet self-questioning cult escapee. Her female and male friends provide refreshing support, acting as true heroes, yet bearing very human flaws. Meanwhile, our heretical heavy, Magnus, struts across these fictional compounds, acting like real cult founders, yet with his own especially nasty spins.

Lee strikes other story-and-truth balances in portraying the goodness in both non-Christian and possibly Christian heroes. Spoiler alert: Wynter won’t go straight from false gospels to the real one. But, from a Christian’s vantage, she does meet people whom God has blessed with “common grace.” They not only give good gifts to their children (Matthew 7:11), but strive to care for others’ spiritually abused children.

Other heroes reflect overtly biblical beliefs, such as a fellow escapee who blesses Wynter with simple, firm, and compassionate truth. “Whatever your so-called (or real) infraction, you are not damned,” this woman tells Wynter. “You need to know there is life and love in the world. I’ve seen it. God is far bigger than the Enclave.”

To help someone escape false teaching or a cult, this is exactly what you must say.

These truth glimpses give The Line Between surprising heart-warmth amongst the chill, while its road-trip quest drives fast through mad territory and never once feels bogged down in snowbanks. Even by the finale, we get hints that our heroes have learned that yes, sometimes you must stay preserved from a world gone mad, but for the greater mission of helping others in that world. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, you can’t simply separate from evil people—not even cultists—in order to avoid evil. That very line between evil and good cuts through every human heart.

Sure, we can know such a truth in our heads. But stories like Lee’s (to be followed by A Single Light in September 2019) help us feel that truth. And sometimes they can even help us escape our own false beliefs to thaw in the freedom of gospel grace.

Best for: Teen and adult readers, especially those who dare to explore the ways real people can corrupt biblical faith for their own abuses of power.

Discern: A few swear words and misuses of God’s title; descriptions of violence brought on by an apocalyptic mental-illness plague; acts of spiritual and emotional manipulation, including a villain’s attempted seduction; unmarried young man and woman sleep together for comfort, but without any mention of sexual activity.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket
  • WhatsApp
  1. Speculative Faith | In Our New Podcast Episode, We Encourage You to Be a Creative 'Prepper' for Hard Times says:
    March 17, 2020 at 6:45 am

    […] Lorehaven reviews The Line Between […]

    Reply
  2. Speculative Faith | Win A Digital Copy of Tosca Lee's Pandemic Thriller 'The Line Between' says:
    April 3, 2020 at 7:59 am

    […] Two Lorehaven magazine subscribers will win digital copies of Tosca Lee’s pandemic thriller The Line Between. […]

    Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

Wear the wonder:
Get exclusive shirts and beyond

Listen to Lorehaven’s podcast

Authors: Reach new fans with Lorehaven