River Readers

This was a nice story. The illustrations were amazing and I really liked the dresses. Some would be quite fashionable even now. The dreams of a person can change with circumstances, but their basis is always the same. One must decide how much to give up to achieve them. Yourself or the dream. It's nice when you can get both.

Leigh Chen Sander's mother committed suicide. Leigh is certain her mother has become a beautiful red bird and is trying to give her a message. Her mother had always been allusive about her childhood, her family and her life in Taiwan. Her father, so devastated by her mother's death is unwilling or unable to tell Leigh much about her mother's past. Certain that the key to the message her mother was trying to get her to uncover was somehow tied to her family in Taiwan, Leigh and her father travel there.

This collection celebrates women fantasy artists. I am familiar with some of the artists like Kinuko Craft, Ruth Anderson, Anne Yvonne Gilbert, Sulamith Wolfing.
I'm not sure the artists' best works were featured. For example Anne Yvonne Gilbert had a drab vampire scene, when she had so many other delightful pieces(try googling her images). Same thing with Jody A. Lee (who illustrates for Mercedes Lackey). It was quite interesting to see the connection between fantasy literature and fantasy art.

This was another nice romance in the Happily Inc series. I enjoy learning more about the Mitchell men and this one expanded on the shocking twist of Ronan's true mother. The artists in this series are amazing to read about and I often wish they were real people so I could actually see their creations.

Maika Halfwolf is from the "race" called arcanics. Arcanics are used by humans for the magic that can be extracted from them. Maika has a stump for an arm, a multi-eyed monster resides in her body and sometimes surfaces to devour others. I have a bit of a problem following the storyline, it would probably help if I reread the book. Or perhaps its intentional. Analagously, another author C.J. Cherryh has battle scenes where you're never quite sure what happened - I suspect people in battles are often unclear about everything that happened.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a famous painter in Rome in the 1600's. Motherless, at age 12, she had to chose a life in the convent or to labor for her father grinding pigment for his paints. She also painted in her father's studio and by the time she was seventeen her talent was obvious. A woman in a world where men viewed women as commodities, Artemisia soon realized nothing was her own not her art, her virtue, or her life. She was at the mercy of the cruel men around her.

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

Comics for Choice is anthology of comics about abortion. As this fundamental reproductive right continues to be stigmatized and jeopardized, over sixty artists and writers have created comics that boldly share their own experiences, and educate readers on the history of abortion, current political struggles, activism, and more. Lawyers, activists, medical professionals, historians, and abortion fund volunteers have teamed up with cartoonists and illustrators to share their knowledge in accessible comics form. --from Goodreads