'The Book of Rapture' by Nikki Gemmell

Fiction - paperback; Fourth Estate; 269 pages; 2009. Review copy. Nikki Gemmell is an Australian author based in London who achieved international acclaim with her 2003 novel The Bride Stripped Bare, which was originally published anonymously on the basis that the subject matter was too provocative. Prior to this she wrote three other novels -- Shiver; Cleave; and Love Song -- none of which I've read. However, I've long been familiar with Gemmell's work, mainly as a broadcast journalist, first, on Triple J, the ABC's youth network, back in the early 1990s (she filed memorable reports on a scientific expedition from Antarctica; her girlie voice used to grate), and second, more recently as a commentator on the BBC's Newsnight Review. This latest novel, The Book of Rapture, is a strangely haunting story set in an unnamed country at an unspecified time. It feels dystopian but lacks the true grit and...

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mmell.html

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