A graphic novel telling the romance between two women in service, set in a time of social change and opportunity. One character is unapologetically plain and plump, the other is a bi-racial daughter of the English presence in India. There’s lots of exploration of family, loyalty, community, and the tricky balance between security and making a life of your own. And sex. There’s lots of sex. Which I hadn’t quite expected to see on the page given the feel of the cover art and description. Not a problem, just not expecting that.
Reviews: graphic novels
Blog entry
The season of people posting their "top 10" or "10 favorite" for the past year is a bit fraught for authors. There's always the hope that maybe, just maybe, your work will have been among someone's favorites, or considered by someone to have been among the best of whatever category it is they're considering. For those of us whose work falls outside the popular categories, and when that work came out at the very end of the year when most people have already drawn up their lists, it's best just to close our hearts and move on.
I think I mentioned previously that, having bought the Comixology app for my iPad to read a particular title, I went hunting around in their catalog to find other things of interest. Since they have a GLBTQ category in the catalog, I figured that was a good place to start. Mostly filled with very pretty boys kissing each other, as might be expected. But one title caught my eye for featuring a female POV character, a historic setting, and the promise of exciting adventure.
Having downloaded the Comixology app in order to read Heathen, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was about to start reading more graphic stories. I've been hearing a lot of praise for Monstress, so it was a natural choice for my next set of purchases. Monstress is set in a secondary world built with a flavor of several Asian cultures as well as original invention, and a somewhat steampunky esthetic.
It isn't often that I see a recommendation floating by on Twitter that makes me think, "Yes, I need to add an entirely new media platform to my devices so that I can have access to this thing." But someone mentioned the graphic series Heathen [and do you know how hard that is for me to type correctly the first time?], and one look at the art on the website splash page had me hitting the app store to buy Comixology.
