Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

“A Truly Haunted Vessel”: A Review of Haunted Queen of the Seas: The Living Legend of the RMS Queen Mary, by Nicole Strickland (2nd ed., Penoaks Publishing, 2017). ISBN 978-1542595575 As much as I enjoy writing book reviews, some are more special than others. Not only is this my two-hundredth; it’s on a subject near and dear to my heart—the art and craft of paranormal investigation. Factor in the additional aspect of it celebrating one of the most haunted places in the world—meticulously and dare I say lovingly documented by a true professional in our field—and this review is very special indeed. Keeping in mind that this is book one of a trilogy that Strickland has written over the past decade about the Queen Mary, and that she is a frequent walker among Mary’s hallowed and haunted passageways and decks, it’s hard to do the length and breadth of Strickland’s work justice in a two-page review, so I’ve decided to highlight the methodology of the book, which overlaps with best practice...

“Once the Clock Strikes 12”: A Review of Nothing Good Happens After Midnight (A Suspense Magazine Anthology), edited by Jeffery Deaver (Burdett, NY: Suspense Publishing, 2020). Paperback ISBN: 978-0-578-72436-2/Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-578-75057-6 Anthologies are a lifeblood of the publishing industry. At any given time, I’m usually reading at least one. They are a great way to explore a certain genre (in this case, Thrillers) or to learn about new authors whose works you might enjoy. Author–editor Jeffery Deaver has assembled a notable group of writers whose accolades as far as bestseller lists, awards, number of different languages in print, and sheer productivity most likely equal any current anthology’s on the market, and there’s plenty to highlight among the dozen stories in this brand-new collection, so let’s dive in. Editor Deaver eases the reader into an eclectic mix of stories with one that treads along a tried and true trope of this genre: serial killers. [Subsequent stories ...

(Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 2020). ISBN 978-1-936012-92-3 As I type this review—my 198th—I do so in the midst of an America (and a world) in crisis. We are in day three of a contested, contentious election. England has locked back down for at least a month, and people were leaving Paris in droves ahead of a second lockdown because the pandemic is once again spreading at alarming, and in some places unmitigated, rates. Colleagues, clients, and just about everyone I talk with feel a Pressure. A dark, invasive Cloud of Worry, Fear, and Stress. We don’t yet understand the extent to which the world has changed in the past seven months. Let’s start with the hundreds of thousands dead, and those who have survived COVID-19 but will live with its effects for the rest of their (potentially shortened or diminished) lives. How about the many industries, businesses, and livelihoods that have been irreparably damaged or people displaced from their homes? How many twenty-somethings have mo...

(artist@margaretmccarthy.com, www.margaretmccarthy.com). There’s nothing like a pandemic to adjust one’s perspective and beckon new ways of being. Since April, I’ve added a few select, exquisitely written and constructed plays to my review list. All have been solicitations from the playwrights. Having a theatre company that is indefinitely mothballed as far as presenting plays for live audiences and being a playwright myself, I have great sympathy for these works without a home, without a mechanism to reach an audience, as well as for their creators. So I am doing what I can to make a case that certain plays can offer almost as much to a reader as they can to an audience. After all, that is how good plays get produced… they are read by a dramaturg, director, or producer and, if the strength of their vision, the weight of their words, the complexity and authenticity of their characters, and the energy of their narrative are sufficiently compelling, the playwright’s work is lifted off of...

Somewhere between the fast-paced action of a 1940s noir and detailed, methodical read-by-the-fire novel, Shamus Dust is a well-researched, engaging exploration of London post–World War II (when “eggs were powder, bread was on ration, and bacon wasn’t even a rumor”), where the bombings and disruptions of the war have opened the gates to all manner of subterfuge and cash-grabs. According to her biography, Janet Roger cut her thriller and mystery teeth on Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and it definitely shows. But, as I said, this is more than just a trope-filled whodunit, although fans of the genre—myself included—will not be disappointed. If you are familiar with Hugh Laurie’s The Gun Seller, it has the very same layer of intelligence. As a writer of historical novels who loves to do research and create highly detailed descriptions of the worlds in which they happen, as well as a playwright who has penned two audience-chooses-the-endings murder mystery musicals and an Escape Room ba...

“For the Page as well as the Stage”: A Review of The Blood of Squirrels , a play by Gabriel Rosenstock (Dublin: Original Writing Ltd, 2012), ISBN: 978-1-909007-12-3 Some days, it is splendid to be a reviewer. Most days, honestly. But the days when a little gift is delivered to my email in-box in the form of a book—or a play—that is in need of some attention, some publicity… those are the best for me. Of the nearly 200 reviews I have written, roughly 180 of them are of fiction and nonfiction books. I have also reviewed music and videos. And also some plays. Plays are interesting to review. An argument is often made that teaching Shakespeare as literature instead of theatre is detrimental. Well, of course you are missing the performance element, which is what the plays were expressly written for… but more people have probably read those plays than seen them, so overall it’s been helpful. And here we are, five months into the pandemic, with Broadway shut down until a...

(Subterranean Blue Poetry, 2020, www.subterraneanbluepoetry.com ) ISBN: 979-8654276247 “Loose Cannon”: an expression that derives from the danger posed by an unsecured cannon on the deck of a ship. Irish poet Michael McNamara’s newest collection plays on this definition. If he is the first to do so, I applaud him. The implications of this homonym certainly fit and the implications are profound. Edgar Allen Poe said that a novel is a cannon, while a short story is a rifle. But what of poetry? We might say that a collection is a cannon, while the individual poem is the rifle. Inserting the homonym, this loose canon of collected poetry can certainly do some damage: to the established canon and to our perceptions of time, place, and death. These themes, prevalent in McNamara’s work, are the primary reason I am deeply engaged with it. I recently reviewed his collection, This Transmission (Argotist Ebooks, 2019), a complex work on the amorphous nature of identity. As founding edi...

 (Naples, FL: Receive Joy Publishing, 2019), ISBN: 978-0-9988484-1-9 A number of years ago, when I was living on the beautiful Crystal Coast in the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina, an author client referred me to the writing team of Carisa Jones and Sylvia Lehmann, collectively known as Receive Joy. During a long lunch on the waterfront of my beloved Beaufort, we talked at length about their exciting work in positive thought and manifestation. By the end of the conversation, I had agreed to be the editor for their first book, Ask and You Shall Receive. A truly dynamic duo, I was most impressed with their energy, enthusiasm, deep belief in God and His Gifts, and their commitment to write the book using only positive words. During the course of my work with them, I attended several of their Miracle Group meetings and have since worked with them in other capacities. Between Ask and You Shall Receive and the current book, they have stayed active in their mission to t...

 (Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 2007 [Orig. 1936, E.P. Dutton]). ISBN 978-0-943914-98-5 Paul Brunton, perhaps best known for his Short Path to Enlightenment and theories about the Oversoul, was an explorer, spiritualist, and thinker in the great tradition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As humankind grappled with the Industrial Revolution and the question of the moral validity of Empire, Brunton and others like him sought to understand the varied religious, historical, and political systems of the world by experiencing them firsthand. Prior to going to Egypt, he traveled to India, writing the precursor to this volume. As Timothy J. Smith writes in the introduction, this journal is not only outward but an “inward journey of initiation.” When I first received it I anticipated a travelogue with valuable information about Egypt and its wonders through the lens of the 1930s. Although it is certainly that, detailed in its descriptions of buildings a...

(Ithaca, NY: Delok Publishing, 2020). ISBN: 979-86293322732 (paperback) It has been my privilege as a reviewer over the past twenty years to have the opportunity to track the growth of a handful of writers whose new works I have been sent year after year by themselves or their publishers. For a mind like mine, that looks at all things—most especially narrative—through myriad, multilayered lenses, it is instructive and often inspiring to see psychological growth, refinement of perspective, and narrative skill with the written word develop over time. William Douglas Horden is one of those handful of authors. Since returning home eleven years ago to find a package from Horden’s publisher on my porch with one of his first books, The Toltec I-Ching , coauthored with Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, I have read, on average, one of Horden’s twenty-plus books every year. Sometimes two or three. Many I have reviewed, although review has become, at this point, an inaccuracy. It has become my chall...

(United Kingdom, 2020), ISBN-13: 9798633753684 As a fantasy writer, I know quite well the challenges (and rewards) of writing in a genre with abundant tropes and forebears with names like Tolkien, Lewis, and Martin. There is much to live up to and every opportunity to make anew, with a fresh perspective or unique element, must be seized. Daniel Lawley has succeeded in honoring the fantasy genre, while emphasizing adventure and religious–philosophical elements that allow his novel to stand on its own amidst excellent company. Each chapter of Bliss begins with an excerpt from an ancient book, rhyme, song, or proverb. This is a crucial device in Fantasy to give the world depth, history, and substance. These epigraphs also cue the reader to the philosophical themes being explored in each chapter, working, in quatrains, like a Greek chorus. The world of Bliss has two suns, which is interesting because the story is rich with dichotomies… life and death, light and dark, powerful ...