The legend is only the beginning . . .
‘A spectacular story of shape-shifting, love and faith . . . It enthralled me’
Jessie Burton, multi-million bestselling author of The Miniaturist and The House of Fortune
‘Astonishing . . . a scorching vision of a book’
Charlotte Wood, Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional
‘A fierce, sexy, heady maelstrom of a book. It sucked me in from the first page’
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
‘What an incredible book Rapture is. 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’
Evie Wyld, author of The Echoes
‘Bold and unexpected, Rapture buzzes with life and energy . . . Extraordinary’
Rosanna Pike, instant Sunday Times bestselling author of A Little Trickerie
‘Emily Maguire has created an earthy, visceral, and sensual tale, full of devotion, intrigue and passion . . . A stunning novel’
Victoria MacKenzie, award-winning author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain
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.
A note from the author
‘Rapture is inspired by a thousand year-old story about a clever girl who dresses as a man to follow her lover to a monastery where she becomes a brilliant scholar and teacher, and eventually ends up – still in careful disguise – the most powerful person in Rome.
I feel like this is the book I’ve been working towards for my whole writing life. The story of an ambitious woman in a world where women are supposed to be modest. A woman whose mind refuses to accept a small life, and whose body is reviled while remaining, for her, a source of great joy. A woman, who, like so many oppressed people throughout history, finds a way to subvert and resist. To be who she is without permission or approval.
In Rapture this legendary, much-argued over figure is a flesh-and-blood woman of ingenuity, purpose and passion. Her name is Agnes, and I’m excited for you to meet her.’
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Reviews
PRAISE FOR EMILY MAGUIRE'S AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
Shortlisted 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
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
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
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
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
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 a fierce, sexy, heady maelstrom of a book. It sucked me in from the first page - a glittering feat of imagination
Fresh and intimate . . . Rapture is steeped in history but it wears those trappings lightly; it's an easy read with plenty of intrigue and high stakes . . . There is a layer of Maguire's novel for readers who delight in the sensual creation of books, from the parchment to the words written on it. In these moments, Agnes might be the same eager reader as any of us, brought to life by a story's energy. She is not only Pope Joan but also a child, a scholar, a woman, a lover, a teacher. And through her, Maguire manages to tease apart, if only for a moment, the purity of faith itself from the ambitions of the institutions that control it
Maguire has a mastery over her narrative so that we believe in and delight in this implausible story about a woman, a non-person, becoming Pope, of living entirely in a male world, of never being out of disguise as a man, of no one guessing her secret. As Agnes, she was powerless, as Brother John she understands power and uses it well . . . Absorbing, educative and thoughtful
My book of the year is Emily Maguire's extraordinary Rapture - fierce, wise and magnificent
I adored Emily Maguire's lush, immersive historical novel Rapture
What an amazing book. It's so beautifully written that I wanted to slow down and savour every sentence, whilst also rushing ahead to find out what happens. It's bursting with earthy and visionary life