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Emily Maguire’s new novel, Rapture, takes as its inspiration the legend of Pope Joan, reworking key elements of the myth to create a brilliant work of great power and beauty.

The story starts in 9th-century Mainz, Germany, where Agnes lives with her father, an English priest. Although his vows include celibacy, Agnes’s father has slept with a local Saxon woman, but her death in childbirth has left him with the responsibility of raising his daughter. Unusually for that time, Agnes is given an education, listening to the intellectual debates at her father’s dinner table. At one of these dinners, she meets Brother Randulf, a monk from Fulda Abbey, and thus begins their relationship. After her father’s untimely death, Randulf agrees to help Agnes disguise herself as a man to become a Benedictine monk. As Brother John, Agnes starts down the path that will lead her to becoming the head of the Roman Catholic church.

There is so much that is compelling about this novel. The writing is absolutely beautiful and often poetic in its intensity. Characterisation is intimate and believable, and Agnes’s perspective gives us a close insight into her views and feelings. The power of the novel lies in this range: Agnes is a person of huge intellect, but it is also her journey to womanhood, something that she initially represses, that becomes a key focus – with tragic consequences. The novel always bears its research lightly; we see the often-conflicted world of the monasteries, alongside the disintegration of the Carolingian dynasty after the death of Charlemagne and the terrible consequences of the ensuing civil war. Maguire depicts some horrific moments with artistic sensitivity and, as much as violence is a part of this world, its inclusion is never gratuitous.

This is a fabulous book for any serious reader of literary historical fiction. Very highly recommended.

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Singapore, 1963. What can you say about a young woman, Siew Li, who walked away, without warning, from her twin children and husband? Jeremy Tiang says a lot as he weaves an always gripping and mostly grim story of people caught up in the long conflict between the forces of the right and left.

That the right won and steered Singapore through a rapid and rare transformation from third world to first is well-known. The story of the communist insurgence in Singapore and Malaysia has faded from public memory, despite works such as Anthony Burgess’s Malayan Trilogy and Yeng Pway Ngon’s Unrest. State of Emergency is a rich addition to this meagre literature.

Told from multiple viewpoints, linked stories connect small, human acts and place them against a larger narrative of ordinary people trapped in times when torture, murder, and massacre are condoned. From the opening scene, the historical MacDonald House bombing, to a fictional end in which Siew Li’s son gets as close to her as he ever will, this is a remarkable blend of the sweep of history and the minutiae of people’s lives.

There is a version of history which peddles the idea that the American invasion of Vietnam could have learned much from the more successful British-led intervention in Malaya. The survivors of Batang Kali (one of whom becomes a narrator for a while) would, of course, disagree. This novel gives them – and the dead – a voice.

I was left wanting to know much more about Siew Li than the author has revealed, even though she tells the story for some stints. There are surprising bloopers about the time zone in Thailand and a jungle being silent at night. On the balance, these are immaterial defects in this great work of historical fiction.

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Fans of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will want to grab this gorgeous magical-realist novel set on the Nebraska prairie during the height of the Dust Bowl climate disaster. Russell, a MacArthur grant winner, is best known for her collections of short stories, and this is only her second novel after the 2012 Pulitzer finalist Swamplandia! It is well worth the wait, offering a ferociously moving meditation on America’s refusal to come to terms with the violence and injustice of its own past. The story begins on “Black Sunday,” April 14, 1935, when tornadic dust storms destroyed farmland throughout the Great Plains, and a variety of point-of-view characters lead the reader to an intimate understanding of the Great Midwestern Drought that decimated the farmlands of the American prairie and worsened the Great Depression.

The premise sounds grim, but Russell draws on some of our most enchanting national myths to bring these characters to life. The alert reader will quickly realize that yes, this novel is set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, in the depths of the Dust Bowl Depression, and yes, the inhabitants are menaced by dust tornados, and yes, the main characters are a scrappy orphan girl, a mysterious scarecrow, a stiff midwestern bachelor searching for love, and an exhausted prairie witch whose task it is to collect the toxic memories of her neighbors and store them away inside herself. But Russell’s evocations of L. Frank Baum’s American fairytale are subtle and never distract from the gritty, tender, fierce realism of this expansive story. The supernatural elements of the novel are infused with such a deep, compassionate humanity that the reader never has the sense that this is anything but a completely true story. Russell has created a masterpiece that will probably be on many 2025 award lists.

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Ireland, 1765. When young Mary Kearney is sent to work at Goward Hall, she joins her brother and sister in service and lightens the load of her impoverished father, who has too many mouths to feed. She begins to wait on the very married Lady Mitchelstown, who is involved in a scandalous romance with Lord and Lady Goward’s son James. James eventually arranges for Mary to learn to read and write, and as they become much closer, the outrage of both the upper and lower classes descends upon them. They enter into a secret marriage, but in the eyes of the world, Mary is a mistress, and only a few at the time know that she is James’ wife. And nearby, an evil man waits, determined to ruin Mary for good.

Late 18th to early 19th-century Ireland comes alive in this book, as the characters speak to us from the past in dialect true to the time. There is a great deal of epistolary work, and it is woven in beautifully. Letters, articles, documents, and diary entries highlight the many voices, bringing each character to life with great effect. The novel begins with the dictated words of Mary’s father, who cannot read or write. The letters contain everything from love to gossip to threats, depending upon the writer. The class differences of the time are highlighted well, and the Catholic versus Protestant conflict is explored. The attempted uprising by the United Irishmen is well researched, and its consequences spill across the page. The captivating love story of James and Mary endures many hardships, including plotting and scheming from wicked people. Honest and intriguing, this gripping saga will transport and inspire you, and it just might break your heart. Highly recommended.

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