Women Mystics

With Wild Mercy, Mirabai Starr shares the subversive wisdom and fierce compassion of the feminine mystic across cultural boundaries and throughout history. From saints and sages, to goddesses and archetypal energies, to contemporary teachers and seekers - you'll meet women who blazed a path that will illuminate your own.

Journey into the lives of extraordinary women who redefined spirituality, reshaped philosophical thought, and left an indelible mark on the world of mysticism. Mystic Women offers an inspiring exploration of female visionaries whose insights and legacies continue to influence philosophy, faith, and mystical traditions around the globe.

On the day her daughter leaves for college, Anne Colwater's husband of 20 years announces he wants a divorce. Her roles of wife and mother suddenly gone, Annie retreats to her childhood home of Mystic, Washington, to heal. There she finds her old friend Nick, suddenly widowed and unable to cope with his emotionally scarred young daughter, Izzie.

A community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York. Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of the entire monastery.

Is there a Christian spirituality that embraces the entire reality of womanhood? The answer, Shannon K. Evans suggests, is an emphatic yes. There is a spirituality that meets us in every part of our lives, developed by the women who came before us. Six mystics—Teresa of Ávila, Margery Kempe, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and Thérèse of Lisieux—revealed a faith big enough to hold the female experiences of sex and desire, the yearning for bodily autonomy, the challenges of motherhood and identity, as well as life with male authority and—sometimes—violence.

l can’t wait to knock the socks off an acclaimed fae food critic. She’s even called in a world-class-barista friend from America to help WOW! the critic. But just as she proudly finishes polishing her Welsh café’s cups, the anxious witch is horrified to find the critic’s archnemesis dead in a nearby alley. She has to hide the magic of her village from her American friend while the deceased demands answers. It’s up to April to filter through her town’s suspects and roast the Killer.

When my quirky Aunt Rose asks me, an American barista, to help open a hip espresso café near the Welsh and English border, I jumped at the chance. What better way to celebrate my 36th birthday and try to ignore the second anniversary of my boyfriend’s death? Misty Valley isn’t just your average Welsh village. This one is full of fae like pixies, orcs, and leprechauns, and now me. My special power, other than making great espresso? I can see and hear ghosts.

Wyatt Fitzgerald doesn't consider his deafness a disability, and he doesn't want special consideration from anyone - least of all a spoiled city girl like Erin. He prides himself on his ability to read lips, and when she confronts him, Wyatt sees no reason to volunteer to her that he's deaf. But there's no escaping each other in the small Oregon town, especially once Erin seeks him out to make amends. Wyatt gave up on dating long ago, but the written correspondence he and Erin begin to share speak to him like nothing else ever has.

The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic.

Aly’s got enough on her plate, with finishing her degree and taking care of her nephew and starting her new job at the antique store while drooling over the owner's gorgeous son. No time for visions. Alas, the universe doesn't care what Aly believes. When she turns 21, she starts to feel psychic impressions left on objects. A disorienting power for someone surrounded by antiques.

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife charts the lives and times of four medieval women writers—Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife—who all bucked convention and forged their own paths. Largely forgotten by modern readers, these women have an astonishing amount to teach us about love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, and earning a living.

A soldier's spirit trapped in his decrepit manor house begs for help. A ghostly beast returns from the past to haunt the Dark Mire. Is death stalking Misty Valley? April and her friends are called to a spooky mansion in the Dark Mire. A centuries-old murder has been simmering, waiting for someone to take the lid off the truth. A fortune is at stake, but forces neither Ebrel nor Punkin want to face are haunting the mire, looking for another victim. In Misty Valley, real estate tycoons descend on the valley, eager to snatch land, and make deals.

A pompous Pomeranian and visiting media from France lead to unexpected trouble that ends in murder! French media visit Misty Valley for a puff piece on Pierre. Or so he believes. The press is really there to view the plans for development in Misty Valley for the upcoming Grand Prix. But Pierre's hope of fame and glory cools rapidly when he flips the press to reveal a murder. The demise of a French journalist disrupts everyone's plans for a quiet party at Castle Raven.

From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women - some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses - reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions.

While in Bath preparing for her upcoming marriage to Lord Darkefell, Lady Anne learns of a profoundly accurate mystic working in town whose uncanny predictions have stunned the gullible and the skeptical alike. Certain there's a harmless rational explanation for the medium's supposed otherworldly abilities, Anne's tolerance turns to defiance when the seer's dark pronouncements begin having a decidedly harmful affect on her friends - and a troubled local vicar takes his own life.

She takes her java black and her killers convicted. But can she unmask a murderer before she’s ground to pieces? Witchy barista Ebrel Dymestl is fighting to get her new coffee roaster up to snuff while keeping her quaint community’s magic under wraps. So when two hikers stumble upon a corpse, she races in with her supernatural abilities to bring things to a swift close. But she’s certain trouble is percolating in her precious pixie town when the body and its spirit suddenly go up in steam.

Celebrate the impact women have made in our culture: This feminist book is a beacon of brilliance. It is the perfect gift for artists, intellectuals, and anyone who seeks to be inspired by words and profound lives. Most of all, it is a celebration of the journeys and accomplishments of women who have worked to have their voices heard in black and white letters across the world.

Middle-aged bookstore owner Willa Chance is looking forward to the opportunity of appraising a valuable private library that hasn't seen the light of day for 50 years...until she finds a dead body in the backyard and the ghost of the home's previous owner anxiously waiting for her inside.

People’s timeless captivation with those supposedly endowed with supernatural powers - these gifted individuals oftentimes regarded as gods walking among everyone else - is a fascinating phenomenon in itself. Soothsayers and clairvoyants were particularly revered in past centuries, even by royals, nobles, and other influential figures, who placed oracles, mediums, and mystics in their retinues and sought counsel from them on a regular basis.

Bethany Parker finally feels at home. With a found family of fellow supernatural outcasts, the fifty-year-old divorcée starts to believe she can make peace with her past. But when the vampire she freed receives a visit from his former partner-in-crime, she discovers she's not the only one running from trouble. Threatened with death by the new arrival unless she retrieves a magical artifact, Bethany plots to thwart the bloodsucker's trap. But even with the help of her level-headed medium friend and loyal talking cat, the recently awakened mystic fears she won't master her powers in time.