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Start giftingRapture
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Learn more'Astonishing . . . a scorching vision of a book' CHARLOTTE WOOD, bestselling author of The Weekend
The legend is only the beginning...
Ninth-century Mainz, in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. Agnes is the motherless child of an English priest - a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. But when tragedy strikes, she is suddenly forced to choose between what is expected of her and the life she has always dreamed of. Determined to find her own freedom, she disguises herself as a man, securing a place at the revered Fulda monastery and forever altering the course of her existence.
Thus begins the life of John the Englishman: a matchless scholar and scribe of Fulda, then a charismatic heretic in an Athens commune and, by her middle years, a celebrated teacher in Rome.
There, she dazzles the Church hierarchy with her knowledge of the old and new languages of Europe, theology and Church law, and finds herself at the heart of political intrigue in a city where gossip is a powerful - and deadly - currency.
And when the only person who knows her identity arrives in Rome, she will risk everything to once again feel what it is to be known - and loved.
Emily Maguire is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books. Her 2016 novel, An Isolated Incident, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. She was twice named as a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year, was the 2018/2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and the 2023 H. C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Emily has an MA in literature and works as a mentor to young and emerging writers.
Reviews
PRAISE FOR EMILY MAGUIRE'S AN ISOLATED INCIDENTShortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize
'Superb writing and sense of place. Totally credible voices. Read her!'
Ann Cleeves
'This hugely chilling and evocative story, mixing lyrical language and brutal events, is told with great psychological acuity'
Anita Sethi Maguire has performed the dazzling feat of making the earthly feel miraculous and the heavenly feel intimate. This glorious novel both burns and sings This book is so alive and real I was totally hooked from the start. It captures both the grit of daily human life and the soaring ecstasies of the eternal burning spirit. Another masterpiece from Maguire Rapture is the perfect title for this wonderful, original story of devotion, passion and purpose. I felt myself transported, seamlessly, to another time, long ago, with Agnes, the novel's determined protagonist, as my guide. I loved her An enthralling evocation of a world in turmoil, threaded through by the life of a singular, brilliant woman. The wonder of Rapture is that Maguire makes a time more than a thousand years distant feel so vivid and its concerns so alive. Agnes's choices are enduring: How do you become your truest self; what might you sacrifice along the way? This richly inhabited novel is as audacious and unwavering as Agnes herself A strange and magnificent vision of a novel: in Agnes, Maguire embodies a ferocity of both the mind and body, ambition and humility, wisdom, desire, sacrifice, grace and a refusal to follow the path laid down for her. Maguire's language and storytelling soars. I was transfixed. Maguire effortlessly transitions to deeply researched and utterly compelling historical fiction in the style of Lauren Groff, Hannah Kent, Anthony Doerr and Pip Williams What an incredible book Rapture is. Profound, frightening and extraordinarily beautiful. It has all the hallmarks of a great thriller - such tension - mixed with the quiet, confident beauty of Agnes' voice - her fury and her love Emily Maguire has created an earthy, visceral, and sensual tale, full of devotion, intrigue and passion. Ninth-century Europe feels astonishingly tangible and vivid, and Maguire's protagonist, Agnes, is utterly compelling as she sweeps all before her, treading where no woman has dared venture before. A stunning novel A spectacular story of shape-shifting, love and faith, as a singular woman journeys into the depth of her soul. A feat to bring such early history to new life, so rich in desire, and so spare in self-pity. It enthralled me Bold and unexpected, Rapture buzzes with life and energy. It is an extraordinary story of womanhood, told so beautifully that I was thinking about it long after I had finished Rapture is astonishing - a scorching vision of a book. Drawing on history, legend, speculation and gossip, Maguire's medieval girl-Pope story is made of many things: flesh and earth and blood; ambition and abnegation; rage and transcendence, all pouring into this pagan, biblical, strange and mighty work from an imagination in soaring flight Expand reviews