Making the Bliss Mistress  (English, Paperback, Hart Amara)

When Hannah Raye first decides to do the neighbourly thing - visit the old Hermit who lives alone down the end of her road, she has no idea how much the musty dusty tattered and torn old books that he insists she must take as a trade, will change everything that she thinks she knows and believes about life, sex and relationships. For five whole years she has no interest in the books at all, so she comes home puts them in a cupboard - only hauls them out the next time she goes over to check if the old guy is still alive or dead. All this time, she only pretends she's read them, but really she has no interest in reading anything. Why? Because, she is too busy surviving, raising three kids on her own, so why would anything in a book concern her when there is so much every day to get done. But then one day the Hermit catches her out. He now knows that she hasn't read any of books that he has given her. That day she even admits it -she's never read a book in her life, not even in school. The Hermit berates her - calls her ignorant, 'just like the rest of the world.' Then goes on to claim that people like her are the reason the world is in the state that it's in. 'You must read.' He insists 'to find out about the world that you and your children live in.' He gives her a book - God's Call girl, a true story about a Nun who becomes a Call Girl. From that day forward she's hooked. Now that she has discovered the Hermit's library whole days and nights are lost as she becomes utterly intrigued with the mysteries of ancient sex magic, erotic art and history, but most of all with the world's tribal cultures coming of age initiations and rites of passage ceremonies. Unbelievably too, before long, this high school dropout becomes besotted by writers and philosophers such as Tolstoy and Nietzsche, as well as, infamous outlaw scientists and human behaviour theorists such as Wilhelm Reich, and in particular Osho (the infamous Bhagwan Rajneesh And thus begins the luscious tale of how a conventionally moral Christian woman is caused to think beyond what she has been told she should think and believe unquestioned. Ultimately this is a journey of discovery, and learning to trust the voice within enough to realise her own sexual awakening as well as spiritual renewal.