"Be mine" by Lizzy Barber

An audio book. 2 alternating timelines.

2013. San Francisco. Beth arrived 3 weeks ago. She's a consultant. It's 3 months since she took too many pills because her partner Matt had been unfaithful. She'd awoken in hospital to be told that she'd lost her baby. She hadn't known she was pregnant. She's given a card about Elixir. She spends money to join, tutored by Morisa. We get extracts from Elixir pubicity, and transcripts from sessions with Morisa and Beth. The courses are expensive - she borrows money to pay. Tate is like a cult leader. Morisa suggests that Beth tries to seduce Tate to get rid of the memory of Matt. She succeeds. The relationship isn't exclusive - Morisa still sleeps with him, though he suddenly goes off her. Morisa tells Beth that she's pregnant - a rape. She exposes Tate as a fraud in front of his acolytes.

2023. London. Beth (partner Adam, baby Etta) receives an invitation to the 10th anniverary of Elixir. She thinks that Adam might be having an affair, that he might be gaslighting her. She's finding motherhood hard. She joins a young mother group, befriends Mia, suspects Mra is an ex-Elixir member. Adam returns and finds her in a mess. She admits that she used to be Morisa and that she'd had an abortion. Mia says that she's the original Beth's sister. Adam and Etta disappear (taken by Tate?). Mia and "Beth" go to the Elixir HQ in San Francisco. Beth is there. Adam arrives. He says he'd been an Elixir member for years and had contacted her as a job. Their baby came from Tate's sperm - "Etta" is an anagram of "Tate". It had all been Beth's idea to help Tate produce a super race. "Beth" tells the group of women that when she'd tried to shoot Tate he'd used Beth as a human shield. Beth's injury meant she could no longer have children. There's a rebellion. Tate dies.

2042. London. An 18 y.o. girl is going to a university interview. A woman befriends her, offers her info on a self-improvement group, Euporia. The girl is Etta.

Even granted the cult influence, there are people who live false lives for so many years that in the end nothing surprised me. Mia was hard to believe. The extracts from Elixir were standard fare. In "Questions were asked about her past history", are both those final words needed?