Beauty is the story of a lonely writer who secludes herself in a remote northern wilderness to care for injured wildlife. When a fellow researcher -- an arrogant, instinctual, and fiercely independent hunter and tracker -- begins to encounter her on secret trails, his animal nature draws her into a sudden obsession that takes her by surprise. Though he becomes her lover, he remains ever elusive and invulnerable to deep emotion. Just as she seeks the trust of the wounded birds of prey she handles -- trying to be gentler or braver, trying to disappear -- she practices stalking a man's secret heart. Now she must question her place in nature, facing the strange truth in her lover's contempt for compassion and his inflexible belief in the cold laws of survival. She must learn how to kill one animal to feed another, in order to understand in her body the surrender that true love requires. Beauty is at once a sensual love story and the path of a woman's quiet empowerment. It explores humanity's many relationships with the rest of the living world and an artist's changing relationship with reality. Both a story and a poem, Beauty carries the reader through a fluid spiral of intimate moments -- our most familiar longings expressed in the intuitive language of the natural world.

Beauty

Literature & Fiction

Meltz, Mindi

Literary

Hidden Door Press

Fiction. It begins with the unseen princess—named Lonely by the wind—of a City whose people have forgotten their bodies, hearts, and souls; as she escapes from her illusory tower to search for the mysterious prince who never showed up. Guided in her journey by wilderness outcasts, gods, and wise animals, she gradually becomes human; discovering her first desire with a tortured dragon god of the desert, and awakening to the cycles of earth and family on a humble mountain farm. At last she soars to spiritual heights with her ghost-prince above the clouds, only to lose him again, falling backward into the painful truth of her own past as the polluted river goddess carries her to the City at the Heart of the World. Long ago, Lonely's own father built the City on top of a mystical swamp, displacing her prince's people and forcing them to transform into shape-shifting dream gods. Now her search for her beloved intertwines with that of the dragon god, a seductive huntress haunted by her past, an abused child who in her madness hides her soul in the form of a unicorn, and the witch who cursed Lonely but who paradoxically holds the key to her salvation. Battling the inner demons of rage and pain, all must find the courage to reclaim their own identities, wildness, and divinity in order to save the City and themselves from cataclysmic destruction."LONELY IN THE HEART OF THE WORLD is an ancient mystery tour into our connected future. Mindi Meltz explores the deep nature of the City that is build upon the heart of the world. She decries the establishment of that City through resource extraction, alienation and brute force, but then provides some keys to understanding the spirits and gods that animate the City, hints at what came before it, and strives to discover what lies beyond it. Lonely's quest is a poetic initiatory journey of a woman discovering the true world and her own place among the gods of our connected world. Lonely struggles with the dangers and consequences of abandoning the ancient rites and Mysteries. She finds her way to the power of love in an attempt to heal herself, and then her world. Lonely's journey is our collective story."—Donald P. Dulchinos

Lonely in the Heart of the World

Logosophia, LLC

About the Author\nMindi Meltz is the author of Beauty, LONELY IN THE HEART OF THE WORLD, and AFTER EVER AFTER: THE RITUAL OF FORGETTING (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy), and is the creator of customized Animal Wisdom Cards. Originally from the coast of Maine, she lives in an off-grid home in the mountains of Western North Carolina with her husband, cat, and goats.\nFiction. Fantasy. Faerie Tales. Myth. THE RITUAL OF FORGETTING is the first book of the After Ever After trilogy, in which the heroines of four archetypal fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast and Sleeping Beauty) transform through wicked-witch magic into true female sovereigns, in a mythical expression of the more complex, intimate love story after the "ever after."

After Ever After: The Ritual of Forgetting (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy)

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fantasy

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