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Mist
As winter approaches in the Adelaide Hills, Roisin Clare finds herself swept up in a new cycle of energy and purpose. On the cusp of turning forty-two, she is stepping out with her first solo art exhibition after years of deep inner work healing from trauma and grief. At her Exhibition Opening and in the presence of a loving community of friends and wise elder women, Roisin meets the young musician, Adam Wrenshaw, a Culann of the Pictish Spirit Tradition of which she is Priestess. Despite the difference in age between them, Adam demonstrates an unwavering interest in her and Roisin realises that in the space of a heartbeat, everything can change. 'Mist' is an adventure in love and intimacy. As an expression of hope amidst a climate of cultural sadism and the continuing forces of Dominator ideology in the modern world, 'Mist' is a journey of erotic and therefore personal healing beyond the emptiness of 'all's fair in love and war'. Painting a vision of an ordinary life lived in the presence of Goddess and the responsibility that invokes, 'Mist' offers a possibility for life released from the entrenched patterns of domination and submission, violence, and the eroticisation of violence.
776 pages, Paperback
First published March 16, 2016
4 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Louise M. Hewett
7 books17 followersLouise M Hewett is a independent South Australian writer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 5, 2018
Mist is a contemporary mythic story. Set in the Adelaide hills, it is easy as a local, to feel at home. The characters are also easy to relate to, as well written as they are, I could imagine myself sitting down to a cuppa with any of them! There is also at least one familiar face, with Adrienne making a number of appearances. I challenge any of you to read the book and not hear her voice!
But it is not the exquisite characters or the charming setting that make this book one of the best I have read in a long time. It is the story. Like all mythic stories, Mist teaches. Subtlety it suggests ideas and concepts, a snippet here, a tale there. Like a creeping vine, it touches spots in your mind until it takes root and spreads, bringing life to new thoughts. Through the characters and the stories they tell, your world view slowly alters and expands. Mist draws on other mythic tales and inadvertently suggests paths for the reader to explore. But it does this through story, which is a rare gift, a gift the author has in abundance.
It opens with a challenge. A challenge to you, the reader, to be willing to face the raw nature of our shared humanity. It challenges you to open your mind, your heart and your soul. To become intimate with the characters, to hold them in your heart, love with them, grieve with them, but most of all to be human with them. And Mist promises, that if you make it through, you will never be the same again.
A good book takes you on a journey, a great book takes you on a journey that changes you.
Mist is a great book
But it is not the exquisite characters or the charming setting that make this book one of the best I have read in a long time. It is the story. Like all mythic stories, Mist teaches. Subtlety it suggests ideas and concepts, a snippet here, a tale there. Like a creeping vine, it touches spots in your mind until it takes root and spreads, bringing life to new thoughts. Through the characters and the stories they tell, your world view slowly alters and expands. Mist draws on other mythic tales and inadvertently suggests paths for the reader to explore. But it does this through story, which is a rare gift, a gift the author has in abundance.
It opens with a challenge. A challenge to you, the reader, to be willing to face the raw nature of our shared humanity. It challenges you to open your mind, your heart and your soul. To become intimate with the characters, to hold them in your heart, love with them, grieve with them, but most of all to be human with them. And Mist promises, that if you make it through, you will never be the same again.
A good book takes you on a journey, a great book takes you on a journey that changes you.
Mist is a great book
July 14, 2025
Wow, what a journey! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but ‘Mist’ has been completely different from what I envisaged. For a debut novel, it is impressive. The length had me worried—almost 800 pages of very small print—but I was soon engrossed, and my interest was held throughout.
Knowing that Louise Hewett was inspired by Riane Eisler’s ‘Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body’, which I read some months before I began ‘Mist’, made the story intriguing, exploring as it does the possibilities of a healthy sexuality and pleasure in life and love, without domination, violence or possessiveness.
Hewett has been courageous, putting everything on the table, asking difficult questions, and writing with such candour of sexual pleasure from the point of view of her main character, Róisín. This book is explicit! But the sex scenes are beautifully written, and there is a growing sense, as the journey of Róisín and her lovers progresses, of the unfolding of a new way of being, a new way of relating and loving. There is a sweetness and vitality that accompanies the erotic scenes. What might seem like pure fantasy—and let’s face it, it is hard to imagine it really happening—that two much younger men would fall in love with a 42 year old woman, gradually becomes more believable as the relationship grows. Yes! There really is a different way of engaging in romantic partnerships, based on an entirely different way of looking at the world.
Placing the narrative within a pagan community in the Adelaide Hills (I hardly ever read books set in Australia!) made it both somewhat familiar as well as novel (I don’t think I’ve read anything that is either ‘pagan’ or fantasy-based set in Australia). The combination of pagan spiritual teachings and journeys, myth, healing, plus plenty of feminism and sexual politics made for a heady brew of insights about what needs to change in terms of how men treat women; how people are shaped (mostly distorted) by the dominant culture, most especially by the gender system and trauma; and the wide range of relationship possibilities. Some art, music and café culture was thrown in for good measure. What a lovely little community is portrayed.
One point I’d like to make is that while the word f*ck has many excellent uses (and it was used to very humorous effect at times), I don’t think it’s appropriate to use it to describe sex (at least in its healthy form). It’s etymology tells us that the word means both ‘intercourse’ and ‘to strike or hit’, implying that it contains an implicit violence. Since the way we use words influences our perceptions, I think this is something worth questioning. But that’s just me nitpicking.
There were other elements that I found surprising, and a few parts that I might not have included myself, but I’ve been challenged to think more openly and deeply about these issues. I greatly appreciated the feminist and matriarchal components, which were given credence by being portrayed as actually in practice within the bounds of the pagan community. Róisín, as healer and priestess of her spiritual tradition, is clearly an exceptional case, but her experiences do reveal surprising possibilities, and I have become quite fond of her and her two young men, Adam and Ben. I’m keen to know what happens next.
Knowing that Louise Hewett was inspired by Riane Eisler’s ‘Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body’, which I read some months before I began ‘Mist’, made the story intriguing, exploring as it does the possibilities of a healthy sexuality and pleasure in life and love, without domination, violence or possessiveness.
Hewett has been courageous, putting everything on the table, asking difficult questions, and writing with such candour of sexual pleasure from the point of view of her main character, Róisín. This book is explicit! But the sex scenes are beautifully written, and there is a growing sense, as the journey of Róisín and her lovers progresses, of the unfolding of a new way of being, a new way of relating and loving. There is a sweetness and vitality that accompanies the erotic scenes. What might seem like pure fantasy—and let’s face it, it is hard to imagine it really happening—that two much younger men would fall in love with a 42 year old woman, gradually becomes more believable as the relationship grows. Yes! There really is a different way of engaging in romantic partnerships, based on an entirely different way of looking at the world.
Placing the narrative within a pagan community in the Adelaide Hills (I hardly ever read books set in Australia!) made it both somewhat familiar as well as novel (I don’t think I’ve read anything that is either ‘pagan’ or fantasy-based set in Australia). The combination of pagan spiritual teachings and journeys, myth, healing, plus plenty of feminism and sexual politics made for a heady brew of insights about what needs to change in terms of how men treat women; how people are shaped (mostly distorted) by the dominant culture, most especially by the gender system and trauma; and the wide range of relationship possibilities. Some art, music and café culture was thrown in for good measure. What a lovely little community is portrayed.
One point I’d like to make is that while the word f*ck has many excellent uses (and it was used to very humorous effect at times), I don’t think it’s appropriate to use it to describe sex (at least in its healthy form). It’s etymology tells us that the word means both ‘intercourse’ and ‘to strike or hit’, implying that it contains an implicit violence. Since the way we use words influences our perceptions, I think this is something worth questioning. But that’s just me nitpicking.
There were other elements that I found surprising, and a few parts that I might not have included myself, but I’ve been challenged to think more openly and deeply about these issues. I greatly appreciated the feminist and matriarchal components, which were given credence by being portrayed as actually in practice within the bounds of the pagan community. Róisín, as healer and priestess of her spiritual tradition, is clearly an exceptional case, but her experiences do reveal surprising possibilities, and I have become quite fond of her and her two young men, Adam and Ben. I’m keen to know what happens next.
July 31, 2018
Wow, what a read! Characters to love, much to ponder, and a great deal of inspiration too! Now that's a book!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews