Rapture
A fierce, feminist, sexy retelling of the life of the first and only female pope
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Rapture
Narrated by:
Rose Akroyd
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Rose Akroyd
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By:
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Emily Maguire
About this listen
JESSIE BURTON, multi-million bestselling author of The Miniaturist
'Astonishing . . . a scorching vision of a book'
CHARLOTTE WOOD, Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional
'Incredible'
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
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.©2024 Emily Maguire
Critic reviews
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 (Jessie Burton, author of THE HOUSE OF FORTUNE)
Rapture is a fierce, sexy, heady maelstrom of a book. It sucked me in from the first page - a glittering feat of imagination (Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of THE MERCIES)
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 (Charlotte Wood, Booker-shortlisted author of STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL)
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 (Sarah Brooks, author of THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS)
Impeccably researched and vividly imagined this is historical fiction of the highest calibre. In Maguire's hands, the legend of Pope Joan becomes a story that women of every generation will recognise: a story of embattled womanhood, forced subterfuge and constant, fear-ridden struggle. Rapture is a reminder of the price women throughout history have been forced to pay in order to fulfil their ambitions, satisfy their intellectual curiosities and to quench their thirst for life. Its tragic end shows just how far the world has gone (and will yet go) to suppress both female intellect and sexuality (Annie Garthwaite, author of CECILY)
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 (Rosanna Pike, author of A LITTLE TRICKERIE)
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 (Evie Wyld, author of THE ECHOES)
I adored Emily Maguire's lush, immersive historical novel Rapture (Diana Reid, Writers pick the best books of 2024)
My book of the year is Emily Maguire's extraordinary Rapture - fierce, wise and magnificent (Kate Mildenhall, Writers pick the best reads of 2024)
The writing and reading
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