Review

Agnes, the motherless daughter of an English priest living in early medieval Germany, is unusually educated for a girl, reading and writing Latin and Greek. She lurks under the dinner table and hears all the theological (and not so theological) discussions. She longs to be a part of this fascinating life of discussion and debate, but her father expects her to marry and take on the usual womanly responsibilities. Agnes prays for a different path: she’s seen village women die in childbirth. Her own mother died birthing her.

A near-death experience, a natural disaster and a Benedictine monk who treats her as his equal change her expected fate. Agnes is disguised as a boy and taken to a monastery, where the rule is harsh, but her skills as a scribe are valued. A series of events, and her talents, lead her from there to Athens and then to Rome, to the very heart of Christianity and papal politics, where her emotions, passions and disguise will be tested more than anywhere else.

*

Believe it or not, that synopsis is less spoiler-y than the publisher’s blurb, which gives away almost the whole plot. But it’s literary fiction, so the plot is not so much the point anyway (although, to be fair, there’s a lot more action and movement in this novel than in most lit fic). I really enjoyed this one: it’s an immersive third person subjective dive into Agnes’s thoughts and feelings as an exceptionally talented and devout girl living in a time when women were excluded from all positions of power and scholarship.

Like most historical fiction, it gives you a wonderfully evocative window into another time (albeit a window that is clearly shaped by contemporary beliefs): the sights, the smells, the beliefs, the actions and the events. It’s beautifully written and the cover is divine. I listened to this one, and I can recommend the narrator, who basically got out of the way and let the narrative do its work.

While the events Rapture depicts sound dark when listed, it wasn’t dark or depressing or scary. It was compelling and uplifting. Recommend.

Age: 16+

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Literary depictions of: sexism; rape (backstory); death in childbirth; painful labour; thoughts about acquiring an abortifacient; miscarriage; animal attack; near-fatal injuries; harshness of monastic life, including beatings (not graphically described); multiple sex scenes; plague scenes and associated deaths; near-starvation; extreme sores from prolonged walking; implied but not described aftermath of a terrible massacre which haunts the characters; an episode which could be described (though it isn’t labelled as such in the novel) as a religiously motivated eating disorder; occasional rude words, e.g. f- & s-words, mostly used to convey their original meanings.

*

Maguire, E. (2024). Rapture (R. Ackroyd, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Wavesound.

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