American Rapture
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- 6,99 €
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- 6,99 €
Publisher Description
From CJ Leede, the author of Maeve Fly and a new voice in the feminist horror space, comes a scorching new apocalyptic novel.
Blessed are the meek, Sophie was taught; blessed are the pure of heart. Blessed is the good Catholic girl who honours her father and mother, who renounces the sins of pride, greed, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth, for she will inherit the earth.
But nothing in her strict religious upbring could have prepared Sophie for the arrival of the scorching winds that sweep through the Midwest - not the righteous breath of God, but an evil gust that delivers an ungodly, fevered lust unto the virtuous and the wicked alike.
Separated from her family in the chaos of the apocalypse, Sophie is overcome by an unfamiliar fire from within, a steady pulse from somewhere beneath her belly that draws her toward the boys her mother warned her against: their eyes, their lips, their hands, their skin. The hellscape around her is foreign and strange, but so is the frantic desire that blooms in Sophie, tempting her away from the light. Though her own body has become a carnal battleground, she must somehow find her way through the ravaged world to rescue her brother, hoping the fever hasn't taken him; hoping he can still be saved.
'Keep an eye on this rising feminist voice' Tori Amos
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leede (Maeve Fly) masterfully eases readers into a taut horror plot in her standout sophomore outing, which works both as an nail-biting apocalyptic tale and as an empathetic look at the impact of being raised in a harshly restrictive environment. Sophie and her twin, Noah, grew up in Wisconsin, raised by devout Catholics who frightened the children when they were only five by telling them that "God, Jesus, demons, and the Devil are always watching they all know our every thought." Their parents' chance discovery that Noah has a magazine with a cover photo of two men kissing, leads to his being banished to "a spiritual sanctuary for families afflicted with challenged children," and Sophie blames herself for not protecting him. As Sophie matures, she finds herself mocked by schoolmates for her sexual naivete. Meanwhile, a deadly virus that drastically increases the libidos of those infected spreads to the Midwest from the Northeast, and after Sophie gets dramatic proof that it has reached her small town, she must embark on a desperate flight for survival. Leede does a fantastic job putting readers in the head of her wonderfully flawed and recognizably human lead. Add in plenty of page-turning suspense, and this proves hard to put down.
