This story -- of life within Wroe's house, of the women who live there and the life-changing events that occur -- is told from the viewpoint of four of the women, each with a different perspective. The belief system he has is very selective, patriarchal and seems to benefit him more than his congregation.

Leah, an unscrupulous street-smart beauty, is looking for security for herself and her hidden baby, and aims to marry Wroe. One of the virgins is crippled, with short bowed legs — another has taken her arm and supports her lurching career over the uneven ground.

For her seven, Rogers chooses: a cripple, a badly beaten mute, two under-age sisters who can barely read, a virtuous saint, a girl donated by her aunt and uncle who does not belong to the congregation and doesn’t believe, and a girl with an illegitimate son. But he also has an innate and skillful sensibility when it comes to the more mystical and profound side of the story too. Later, in 1830 he received a further message, that God wanted his followers to provide Mr Wroe with seven virgins ‘for comfort and succour’.

I felt no fear, for I knew myself chosen — I knew, from the arrow of certainty that pierced my heart as the Prophet spoke. than a father's, unable to see the workings of God's greater will, for his own small human unhappiness. The Christian Israelite Church was originally set up in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire and from 1822 to 1831 the town was the church's headquarters.This was originally shown on British TV in four episodes, each one told from the perspective of one of the women (Martha, Leah, Hannah and Joanna). Did he really, as charged, use his position of power to take advantage of two of the women in his care? Rogers, who has four previously published novels, tells her tale in the voices of four of the seven women.

round the corner beckoning in her stiff awkward way — and then I heard her croak — `She is not pure! escape any censure from their fellows, but they are also gaining, through their generous gift to the prophet, credit in their account books in the sky. my uncle answered, `For purity in God's work,' and my aunt gasped, then began to choke on her own spittle, and had to run for a draught of water. The story itself is not a wholly happy one though, and it made me grateful to be living my modern secular life. In 1993 Mr Wroe's Virgins was adapted by Jane and made into a four part drama serial for BBC2, produced by John Chapman, directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Jonathan Pryce, Kathy Burke, Lia Williams, Kerry Fox and Minnie Driver.Rogers tells the story from the point of view of four of the seven virgins -- Joanna, Hannah, Leah and Martha -- and, since this is a novel and nothing is known about the real virgins (not even their names) other than the charges some brought, she goes all out with it, making her virgins as individual as possible and I admire her success in it. Everyone has a vision of how things ought to be in Rogers's blazingly intelligent and intricate fifth novel. I am told she has sustained the most terrible injuries, and lies close to death at her father's house. A small and swarthy, hunchbacked son of a Bradford woolcomber, Wroe found his religion through a series of visions during a bout of ill health in 1819. Her voice is as warm and soft as a dove's, and her face, of all of them, the most generous and intelligent.