Venturess by Betsy Cornwall

In the previous book, Nicolette Lampton grew up with a mother who was an inventor and a father who sold her inventions. Then her mother died of the fairy croup because her father refused to try to get the medicine which was illegal because it was magic medicine and the king's wife had died from taking too much of the medicine and therefore the king banned both fairy medicine and faeries.  His eldest son was assassinated and therefore his youngest son was placed under lock and key.  She met Fin and Caro at the Market in downtown Esting when she went there to sell her inventions that she made when on her sixteenth birthday she received a key to her mother's lab.  Unfortunately when the king banned half-fey their housekeeper Mr. Candery, who had been a big help to her left to go back to Faerie. There was an Exhibition for Scientists and Inventors and a ball and she went to both and was successful in getting a backer for her inventions with Lord Alming and danced with a Prince who turned out to be Fin the young boy she had fallen in love with but couldn't marry because it would fit too many bad people's plans.  Besides Caro loved him too.  But Caro also loved Bex, the young stable girl.  And Caro also loved Nick who loved Caro too.  Nick, Caro, and Fin, formed a family.  Fin's father was becoming frailer and listening to the religious extremists, the Brethren, and planning on going to war with Faerie.

In this book, Esting is at war with Faerie and it's not going well for Faerie.  Fin is giving speeches constantly in support of Faerie, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good.  Then one day he gives a speech at the Exposition and is shot in the shoulder and taken away.  Then Lord Fitz, a man who is evil and once interested in Nick, takes an automaton he has created and places it on the stage Fin had been using and mimics Fin's voice behind a curtain and uses the machine to pretend to be Fin speaking that he agrees with his father about the necessity of the war and how the fey are evil.  Nick goes up there to see what's going on and finds out what he's up to. She had announced that she was Fin's fiance and the Heiress in front of a live mic in order to go with the doctors and be with him.  Now Fitz is using this to solidify his position with the Heiress endorsing his position.

Nick goes looking around the castle and finds Fitz's collection of about a thousand half made automatons.  One looks just like her.  She destroys it and many others.  She tells Fin and Caro about them and about the letter she received from Mr. Candery asking Fin to come and make peace with Faerie.  So they decide to head out to Faerie on an airship.  Captain Wheelock, a young captain, takes them across the ocean where they get to go down into the ocean in glass-enclosed boats and Fin sees a merman caught in their nets and he breaks the glass open in order to free the merman.  But he makes Wheelock promise to never reveal what he saw because he is worried that his father will want to conquer the sea folk as well and he wished to protect them.

While in Faerie Nick will not only face her past and her mostly anger and some happiness over it but also the consequences of the actions she's taken over the years that have had great ramifications for those she loves.  Fin will try to prevent a war by creating a peace treaty and Caro will learn the arts of healing.  The three will never be the same again after this trip.  This book is a worthy sequel to Mechanica and teaches us that there is more than one kind of family.  I loved this amazing book and give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

But you must admit, its much easier for someone to be good once they’re dead.

-Betsy Cromwell (Ventress p 69)

The ocean was its own continent, dark as the forest above it, charming and roiling white froth in that it seemed as if at any moment it might swallow the cliffs.  Yet it was seductive, too, in the way it rolled and becxkoned and sang, waves stroking the edge of the land like lovers. Infinitely fierce and infinietely gentle, like every lover I’d ever known.

-Betsty Cornwall (Ventress p 102)

One must always account for the vagaries of truth, Mother used to always say.

-Betsy Cornwall (Ventress p 176)

I was too tired to be anything but docile, and that was what frightened me the most.

-Betsty Cornwall (Ventress p 189)

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Spider-Woman Vol 1: Baby Talk by Dennis Hopeless (Writer), Javier Rodriguez (Penciler, Colorist), Alvaro Lopez (Inker), Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist), VC's Travis Lanham (Letterer)

Spider-Woman, aka Jessica Drew, is pregnant and working with Porcupine and Ulrich, the reporter.  Her best friend is Captain Marvel.  Now its a month before the baby is due and she is taking some time off and is bored to death.  Carol, Captain Marvel, has recommended an alien hospital as being the best hospital to have her baby in and that she should check it out. So Jess goes one day to do just that.

When she finds the maternity ward, some Skrulls take it over and Jess is forced to fight back even though she promised her friends and her baby that she would take it easy.  She destroys the two Skrull soldiers and wins the adoration of her fellow pregnant aliens.  She gets ahold of Carol who is on her way, but she knows that more soldiers are on their way.  She enlists the help of the pregnant aliens and they all take care of the soldiers.  With the help of Carol and the hospital staff talking them through it, they get to a secure place but someone needs to go and talk to a doctor's head kept in storage to get the doors open in order for Carol and the help to get in and get them out.  Jess does this but the head says it could take six hours to get the doors open.

Meanwhile, Carol lets slip that the Skrull are after a thirteen-year-old prince so Jess decides to rescue the prince even in her condition.  Unfortunately, she goes into labor while she is rescuing him. They barricade themselves into a room with a doctor who performs a c-section on Jess who is determined to fight back after the surgery.

Can Jess fight her way out? Or will Carol make it in time to rescue them?  The last section of the book is about Jess taking care of her baby and adjusting to life with a newborn and the lessons to be learned.  Jess is a total badass even when she is crying over being worried about her baby.  The artwork is amazing as it shows the very weird hospital that is inside a black hole.  This book has humor and lots of action. I loved it and I give it five out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Woman-Shifting-Gears-Vol-Baby/dp/0785196226/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=SPider-woman+baby+talk&qid=1575022835&sr=8-1

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

This Nobel Prize Award-winning book takes a look at the incredible life of an incredible woman. Cleopatra inherited with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII the kingdom of Egypt to rule with the understanding that she would be the true ruler from her father when he died in 50 BCE.  She would begin the first of killing off her siblings with him but he would start it by beginning a war with her.  At this time Pompey and Julius Caesar were at war with each other and Egypt had pledged itself with Pompey, which put itself in a bad position because Caesar was winning and Pompey wanted a place to hide out in.  Egypt refused him, but they had given him support early on.

Cleopatra was in Syria and decided to approach Caesar by placing herself in a bag wearing her regal dress and impressing him with her intelligence and her charm.  She succeeded and he agreed to help her dispatch with her brother who drowned in the sea.  There was a chemistry between Caesar and Cleopatra and the two became lovers with Cleopatra delivering him his only child Caesarion whom Cleopatra named the co-regent or pharaoh of Egypt.  She and Caesar had a loving relationship, though they did take what they could from it.  Caesar--Egypt's riches--Cleopatra--land and recognition of her child.  But Caesar wanted to conquer Parthia just like Cleopatra's direct relative Alexander the Great instead of taking care of things at home.  And that led to him getting killed by the Senate, on March 15 44 BCE.

Octavian, Julius's grand nephew was awarded the role of Caesar by Julius's will.  This ticked off Mark Antony who had expected to get the job since he had spent so much time with him.  The two of them were a pair in search of a fight and they found it with the succession of Caesar.  But they would join together to fight off Cassius and Brutus and the Pompey brothers.  Cleopatra would have to pick a side and she picked Dulabella who it turned out had denounced Caesar without her knowledge. And her representative on Cyprus had sent ships to Cassius which she had forbidden.  She tried to command ships to get to Antony and Octavian but was blocked by Cassius and Brutus and had fallen ill and had to turn back.

When Antony's man had arrived to demand why she hadn't helped he saw her and knew that Antony would appreciate her and therefore told her she needed to go to Antony.  She arrived in Tarsus where Antony was on a ship with a purple sail and silver oars pouring incense off the side of the ship so the people on the shore could smell it. She was laying on a couch dressed as Venus with cupids fanning her and sea nymphs working the ship.  She sent the note saying "Venus was come to feast with Bachus for the common good of Asia."   They immediately became lovers.  She soon gave birth to twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.  Pretty soon Octavian and Antony are fighting over Cleopatra's influence in Antony's life.  In truth, Cleopatra had no influence over Antony.  He did what he thought was right and giving his children land made sense.  This would lead to a war between the two of them.

Cleopatra's reign never had a revolt. Her people adored her and worshiped her as Iris the goddess they worshiped.  She took care of her people.  Also, this was a golden age of women and had been for as long as her family's dynasty had ruled.  Men were subservient to their wives.  Women received education and had a say and could own property.   She wasn't beautiful, but her intellect was stunning and she was quite charming.  Someone tabulated the richest people in history and Cleopatra fell at number twenty-second with $95.8 billion behind John D. Rockafeller and Tsar Nicholas II, but ahead of Napoleon and J. P. Morgan and Queen Elizabeth II.  It was that wealth that the Romans sought.  She built the Lighthouse at Alexandria and manufactured gold.  "She convinced her people that a twilight was a sawn--and with all her might--struggled to make it so."  There's a reason we still talk about her--she was one of a kind--and the last of her kind. She brought the end of the Hellenistic Period to a close and changed Rome forever.  She was a complex woman whom people try to simplify into a sexpot or a femme fatale.  She was neither.  Instead, she was a brilliant woman who lost a kingdom and her life.  This book was truly excellently written.  I give it five out of five stars.           
Quotes

It is not difficult to understand why Caesar became history, Cleopatra legend.

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 5)

 And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 6)

It’s a godsend, really lucky, when one has so few relations.

-Menander

And as was observed later in connection with Cleopatra, “Some women are younger at seventy than most women at seventeen.”

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 32)

One royal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

-Euripides

Servant: What excuses shall I make if I am away from the house for a long time?

Andromache: You will find no shortage of pretexts. After all, you are a woman.

-Euripides

No one dances while sober unless he happens to be a lunatic.

-Cicero

Politics have been defined as the systematic organization of hatreds.

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 148)

As Dio observed later, democracy sounded very well and good, “but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them.

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 154)

Yet what difference does it make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.

-Aristole

For talk is evil: IT is light to raise up quite easily, but it is difficult to bear, and hard to put down.  No talk is ever entirely gotten rid of, once many people talk it up: It too is some god.

-Hesiod

As one of Caesar’s murders has noted, “How much more attention  people pay to their fears than to their memories!”

-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 298)

A man who teaches a woman to write should recognize that he is providing poison to an asp.

-Menander

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Uncanny X-Force Vol 1: Let It Bleed by Sam Humphries (Writer), Ron Garney (Penciler), Danny Miki (Inker), Scott Hanna (Inker), Adrian Alphona (Artist), (G Dextter Soy (Artist), Marte Gracia (Colorist), Israel Gonzolez (Colorist), Will Quintanma (Colorist), Christina Strain (Colorist), Davis Curiel (Colorist), Chris Sotomayor (Colorist), VC's Cory Petit (Letterer)

Wolverine tells Elizabeth Blalock aka Psylocke to look into her email where there's an email from someone who has some information for her so Elizabeth and Orro go in search of this person and it turns out to be Puck, a four foot eleven inches dynamo who was on X-Force with Wolverine and Elizabeth.  He tells them that there's a new mutant being held captive by a multi-armed ninja who sells drugs in a run-down building.

Elizabeth knows exactly who that is.   Her mortal enemy, Spiral who used to work for Mojo until he got tired of her and stranded her on Earth without the ability to transport between worlds, but she can still transport on Earth.  They find her and it turns out the girl is psychic and is the one providing the high for the people.  They are about to rescue her when Bishop, the time-traveling mutant arrives and takes her.  They follow Bishop, Elizabeth inside his head. Elizabeth realizes that there is a demon eating away at Bishop's mind.  Bishop insists that the girl is a revenant.   

This is a powerful book as Elizabeth begins to open up a bit to what she's been through.  The killing she's done, what Spiral did to her, the twisted love she experienced in Paris with Fantomex who is back and kidnapping her, and Wolverine who is having problems with how she is doing things.  This is a fantastic book and I give it five out of five stars.

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Star Wars Darth Vader Vol 1: Vader by Kieron Gillen (Writer), Salvador Larrrocoa (Artist), Edgar Delagado (Colorist), VC"s Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

It was a time of great insurrection and the rebels were based out of a hidden moon of Yavin.  They had discovered a secret way to destroy the Death Star.  In a great battle, they take down the Death Star and strike a great blow against the Empire.  It's been nineteen years since Darth Vader was reborn on Mustafar and now Vader is in trouble with the Emperor for failing him.

The Emperor sends Vader back to Jabba the Hutt to continue his business with him, but Vader has already completed his business with him and instead goes back to meet with two bounty hunters with whom he wants to find a boy on the Millennium Falcon because he believes that Obi-Wan gave him his old lightsaber. But before he leaves he notices a man whom he believes that the Emperor is having to follow him because he no longer believes he can do good work. 

Vader comes across Dr. Apha's droids and destroys them and decides to go in search of her in order to have her help him create a droid army as he is looking for who is after him.  They come across creatures who are not Jedi and are not Sith but are being run by the guy who was following him when he was reporting to the Emperor.  Vader sees them as an abomination that must be destroyed and sets out to do just that.

What does all of this mean?  And what does he find out about the mysterious boy who blew up the Death Star and has his lightsaber?  This was a really good comic that delves into Vader's life and makes him sympathetic.  I really did enjoy this book and give it four out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Darth-Vader-2015-2016-ebook/dp/B0153WYYOM/ref=sr_1_4?crid=127HKEVCHUHA9&keywords=star+wars+darth+vader&qid=1574435271&sprefix=star+wars+darth%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-4

Still I Rise: The Persistance of Phenomenal Women by Marlene Wagman-Geller

This book contains the incredible stories of women who have lived amazing lives that changed the lives of others.  For example, Irene Sendler lived in occupied Poland in 1940 during a typhus epidemic in the Jewish ghetto.  And like when she was in school and disagreed with the segregation policy and scratched up her religion section and went and sat in the Jewish section, she decided to go and help the Jews.  A group of them got medical badges to go into the ghetto. They snuck in supplies and food. Irene had an idea of sneaking out the toddlers and babies since they were hearing tales of death camps and she was trying to save the children.  She took down the children's information if the parents decided to give them up and wrote down what church, orphanage, or family they went to and put it into a jar and buried it under a tree.  In 1943 the Nazis were on to her and she had to go into hiding.  After the war, she dug up the jars and did her best to reunite the children with their families.  She might have remained unknown if not for the Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem who in 1965 honored her with the Righteous Gentile award. In 2007 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but lost to Al Gore. 

Fannie Lou Hamer was an African American woman born in Mississippi in 1917 and who didn't know her place.  She had two miscarriages and then went into the hospital to remove a tumor and wound up with a "Mississippi appendectomy" or a hysterectomy.  This got her fired up and involved in the Civil Rights movement where she found out she had the right to vote.  When she and a group of them went to the county seat to register to vote, they faced a literacy test and were forced to list where they worked and where they lived which meant that the Klan would know and they could lose their jobs and the Klan could attack their homes.  Which is what happened to her. She lost her home and her place on the farm sharecropping.  That just made her more determined.  When she and a group were headed out on a bus and stopped to get something to eat, the police arrested the others who had gotten off the bus and when she realized this she got off and made sure she got arrested too.  Realizing that she was a rabble-rouser they had some men beat her as hard as they could with sticks.  Fannie Lou Hamer continued to fight for voting rights and became known for saying during the Democratic National Convention of 1968, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!"  It made her the voice of voting rights.  In 2009 she was put on a US stamp.  Hamer never gave up and never stopped fighting.

Other women this book includes is Dr. Ruth who was a sniper in the Israeli Army and a educator on sex, Joan Rivers who fought hard to make it in a man's world of humor, Claudette Colvin the first woman to be arrested for sitting in the wrong section of the bus,  Mildred Loving who married a white man and fought a harsh legal battle to stay married to him, Carrie Fisher who battled bipolar disorder and Maya Angelou who grew up in poverty, rape, drugs, illegitimacy, and rose to become a famous actress and writer and whose poem is the basis of the title of this book: "You may shoot me with your words/ You may cut me with your eyes/ You may kill me with your hatefulness/ but still, like air, I will rise."   This is an incredible book that contains a list of unbelievable women who are too amazing to read about.  I really loved this book and I give it five out of five stars. 

Quotes

In the words of Oprah, “Turn your wounds into wisdom”.

-Marlene Wagman-Geller (Still I Rise:The Persistence of Phenomenal Women p 17)

Each one of us has the chance to be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud.

-Maya Anglou

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.

-Fannie Lou Hamer

When Carson asked if men ever liked her [Joan Rivers] for her mind, she responded that no man ever put his hand up a woman’s dress looking for her library card.

-Marlene Wagman-Geller (Still I Rise: The Persistence of Phenomenal Women p 120)

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well I took masses of opiates religiously.

-Carrie Fisher

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Heart of the Moors by Holly Black

This book is based on the Disney movie Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.  It picks up where the first movie left off with Maleficent making Aurora Queen of Penceforce and the Moors or Queen of the humans and the fairies.  Prince Phillip had kissed her but his kiss didn't wake her meaning he didn't love her because it wasn't true love's kiss.  But the more time they spend together the more he falls in love with her. But the more time they spend together the more at ease she feels around him and the more she cherishes their friendship.

Aurora is forming a treaty between the fairies and the humans and to celebrate the signing of the treaty she is holding a fall celebration.  Lady Fiona is trying to push her brother Lord Alain on her but she would rather dance with Prince Phillip who loves the fairies, unlike Lord Alain.  She knows that Phillip is good with riddles so she decides to hold a riddle contest for her hand on the dance floor for the opening dance.

Maleficient overhears Phillip rehearsing his speech to Aurora about how he loves her and she threatens him with bodily harm if he does that.  Aurora catches wind that something is up and Maleficient says that he can't walk with her in the Moors without first having dinner with them first.  Maleficient tries to scare him off with a frightening dinner, but Phillip does not scare so easily.  He attempts to tell her that night, but Maleficient prevents him.  The next time he has a chance to talk to her alone he does tell her and she not only tells him no but does so with horror on her face.  He is heartbroken.

He gets forced to compete in the contest and when he gets down to him and Lord Alain she gives him a riddle she gave to him a few days ago and he answers "I don't know." leaving her with Lord Alain as her dance partner.  Lord Alain and Lord Ortolan, Aurora's treasurer are up to something, mainly getting Aurora and Lord Alain together.  But Aurora doesn't want to be with anyone. Maleficient has raised her to protect her heart.

The action really picks up when Maleficient and Phillip get kidnapped and the pages will really fly and you'll be glued to the book as the excitement soars.  This was truly a gripping novel that will keep you reading to the very last page.  Aurora is sweet and good, but not overly so and Phillip is goofy in his lovesickness over her.  Maleficent is mean, but not evil. Not anymore. Aurora changed her.  This truly is a fabulous book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Being in love had nearly destroyed Maleficent. Denying love had destroyed King Stefan. And King Stefan’s inability to love Queen Leila had probably ruined her life, too. Love was terrifying in its power. Love was just plain terrifying.

-Holly Black (Heart of the Moors p 166)

And if I’m wrong, than nothing is fair because we didn’t even get a love story. He didn’t kiss me one time when I was awake. If he was going to betray me, he should have at least kissed me first.

-Holly Black (Heart of the Moors p 270)

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Moors-Original-Maleficent-Mistress/dp/1368045618/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XH520O2GD5QY&keywords=heart+of+the+moors&qid=1574081807&sprefix=heart+of+the+%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1