Raised as a Jehovah's Witness, Kyria Abrahams's childhood was haunted by the knowledge that her neighbors and schoolmates were doomed to die in an imminent fiery catastrophe; that Smurfs were evil; that just about anything you could buy at a yard sale was infested by demons; and that Ouija boards--even if they were manufactured by Parker Brothers--were portals to hell. .

When Kyria turned eighteen, she found herself married to a man she didn't love, with adultery her only way out. "Disfellowshipped" and exiled from the only world she'd ever known, Kyria realized that the only people who...