THE RAPTURE

With overtones of The Handmaid's Tale, the novel takes the unlikely but true history of a religious cult awaiting the Second Coming in the suburbs of 1920s Bedford and fashions from it a poignant tale of misplaced faith and an unexpected love affair. In peering into the claustrophobic world of The Panacea Society, we are forced to consider the relationship between dreams and reality, love and obsession, and blind faith and madness. Dilys is a devoted member of which is almost entirely populated by virtuous single ladies. When she strikes up a friendship with Grace, a new recruit, God finally seems to be smiling upon her. The friends become closer as they wait for the Lord to return to their very own Garden of Eden, and Dilys feels she has found the right path at last. She is wary of their leader's zealotry and suspicious of those who would seem to influence her for their own ends. As her feelings for Grace bud and bloom, the Society around her begins to crumble. Faith is supplanted by doubt as both women come to question what is true and to fear what is real. Based on a true story. 352pp.