'Her self is an illusion yet it is one beloved by most everyone who has heard her speak . . . She is thirty-three years old and there is no one else in the world who knows who she used to be.'

The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wife or nun, Agnes enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and devote her life to the study she is denied as a woman.

So begins the life of John the Englishman: a matchless scholar and scribe of the revered Fulda monastery, then a charismatic heretic in an Athens commune and, by her middle years, a celebrated teacher in Rome. There, Agnes (as John) dazzles the Church hierarchy with her knowledge and wisdom 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.

Rapture is an astonishing, transformative and audacious novel that confirms Emily Maguire as one of our finest writers

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Praise for rapture

‘What an incredible book Rapture is. Profound, frightening and extraordinarily beautiful. I was so tense from the moment Agnes put on her disguise, it has all the hallmarks of a great thriller – such tension – and the quiet confident beauty of Agnes’ voice –her fury and her love.’

— Evie Wyld, author of The Echoes

'In Rapture, Maguire has performed the dazzling feat of making the earthly feel miraculous and the heavenly feel intimate. This glorious novel both burns and sings.'

– Fiona McFarlane, author of The Sun Walks Down

'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.'

– Bri Lee, author of The Work

'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.'

– Sofie Laguna, author of Infinite Splendours

'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.'

– Lucy Treloar, author of Days of Innocence and Wonder

'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.'

– Kate Mildenhall, author of The Hummingbird Effect

‘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’

— Victoria MacKenzie, award-winning author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain