Emily Maguire’s novel Rapture is a big story recounting the events of its causing, in writing that is as compelling as it is superb, as it is consuming. The author’s rendering of hunger; of knowledge, of flesh, of being a woman in a time and place that is confined and limited, is outstanding. The reimagining of a contested legend of a female Pope, Rapture presents protagonist Agnes’s journey through the rigid confines of the 9th-century Church. Agnes becomes John, to pursue her passion of intellectual study in a time when dangers of such desires lurked at every juncture. Maguire’s meticulous research and precise writing immerses readers in a world where faith, gender, and ambition clash and meld and fold. The narrative’s themes of identity and spiritual experience wander in deliberate, reflective and contemplative ways that take the reader from Mainz to Rome. Rapture stands out as a thought-provoking exploration of resilience and the possibilities contained within the female body.