Ingrid Bergman's engaging screen performance as Sister Mary Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary's made the film nun a star and her character a shining standard of comparison. She represented the religious life as the happy and rewarding choice of a modern woman who had a "complete understanding" of both erotic and spiritual desire. How did this vibrant and mature nun figure come to be viewed as girlish and naive? Why have she and her cinematic sisters in postwar popular film so often been stereotyped or selectively analyzed, so seldom been seen as women and religious? In Veiled Desires--a unique full-length, in-depth study of nuns in film--Maureen Sabine explores these questions in a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study covering more than sixty years of cinema. She looks at an impressive breadth of films in which the nun features as an ardent lead character, including The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Black Narcissus (1947), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Sea Wife (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), The Sound of Music (1965), Change of Habit (1969), In This House of Brede (1975), Agnes of God (1985), Dead Man Walking (1995), and Doubt (2008). Veiled Desires considers how the beautiful and charismatic stars who play chaste nuns, from Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn to Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep, call attention to desires that the veil concealed and the habit was thought to stifle. In a theologically and psychoanalytically informed argument, Sabine responds to the critics who have pigeonholed the film nun as the obedient daughter and religious handmaiden of a patriarchal church, and the respectful audience who revered her as an icon of spiritual perfection. She provides a framework for a more complex and holistic picture of nuns on screen by showing how the films dramatize these women's Christian call to serve, sacrifice, and dedicate themselves to God, and their erotic desire for intimacy, agency, achievement, and fulfillment.

In Laith, when the moons are high, Tavarra gains the ability to walk the land, losing her seahorse-like tail. But should she remain out of the water, a curse will consume her, turning her into a beast with sharp fangs and long claws. A creature that, on some nights, becomes a rampaging monster.Rhona and her village are under a sinister leader's control. He took Rhona from the man she loves, stripped away her water ability, then forces her to retrieve a coveted prism that will increase his powers.When Tavarra and Rhona cross paths, they agree to help each other succeed. They then embark on separate missions in hopes of breaking Tavarra's curse and saving Rhona's loved ones. But with an untamable beast inside Tavarra, and Rhona having to wander through a dangerous forest, nothing is certain...

Tracy MacNish's deeply romantic sequel new novel reveals the untapped power of a woman's heart--and how fiercely she dares to protect it. . . Emeline's entire life is controlled by men. She's just been won in a wager by Jeffrey, the Duke of Eton, who keeps her under lock and key. And her cruel stepfather, Simon, wants nothing more than to dominate her entire future. What she wants is a man who'll set her free . . . and Rogan Mullen, heir to the dukedom, just may be the answer to her dreams . . . Rogan is more than eager to have Emeline in his care, but his urge to protect her grows into a yearning to possess her--body and soul. Surrendering completely to love, they cannot foresee that something very sinister threatens to destroy them, for Simon will stop at nothing to control his stepdaughter's fate . . . and only the most fervent passion can endure against such relentless odds . . . "A lushly written, richly detailed Georgian historical [that] pushes the boundaries of the genre."--Booklist

The author discusses Augustine's views on women, particularly women within Christian theology. The author also addresses how Augustine's views were based on his cultural and psychological circumstances, and how his ideas on and attitudes towards women changed.

This book examines the experiences of veiled Muslim women as victims of Islamophobia, and the impact of this victimisation upon women, their families and wider Muslim communities. It proposes a more effective approach to engaging with these victims; one which recognises their multiple vulnerabilities and their distinct cultural and religious needs.

Veiled women in the West appear menacing. Their visible invisibility is a cause of obsession. What is beneath the veil more than a woman? This book investigates the preoccupation with the veiled body through the imaging and imagining of Muslim women. It examines the relationship between the body and knowledge through the politics of freedom as grounded in a ‘natural’ body, in the index of flesh. The impulse to unveil is more than a desire to free the Muslim woman. What lies at the heart of the fantasy of saving the Muslim woman is the West’s desire to save itself. The preoccupation with the veiled woman is a defense that preserves neither the object of orientalism nor the difference embodied in women’s bodies, but inversely, insists on the corporeal boundaries of the West’s mode of knowing and truth-making. The book contends that the imagination of unveiling restores the West’s sense of its own power and enables it to intrude where it is ‘other’ – thus making it the centre and the agent by promising universal freedom, all the while stifling the question of what freedom is.

For two years, Dr. Maira Khan has waited for handsome police officer Sasha Karimi to see her as more than a friend. When Sasha is injured in the line of duty, Maira decides to make the first move, but is rebuffed by Sasha who believes she's blinded by hero worship. Realizing too late that her feelings for him are real, Sasha sets out to win her back with a proper courtship.