Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (Next Chapter, 2026). ASIN: B0GGXYZVRD Over the years, I have come to expect a lot from Bob van Laerhoven’s novels and this one not only doesn’t disappoint—it might just be the best one yet. The prologue begins in Munich in April 1920 with an evocative diary entry by an unidentified author, written to a dead brother about his murdered dog; it’s barely a page. The novel repeatedly returns to excerpts from the diary, identifying the author only as a rabid antisemite who identifies with Parcival, the Grail Quests, Lohengrin, and the Spear of Destiny and who twists the words of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to suit his warped, weaponized Weltanschauung . Chapter one opens in April 1921, when antisemitism was already ubiquitous, with lyrics from a cabaret song about cocaine. It’s a time when the “People’s Court” in the Berlin-Plötzensee prison still dispenses “justice” by beheading. A German psychiatrist eyes an exotic, “half-Chinese” woman in the sweltering heat with obvious add...

  (2026). ISBN: 978-1-7645894-0-6 No man is an island, entire of itself/Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . —John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions , 1624 In a polarizing world, where Othering has divided and not united, where difference is a liability instead of a strength in the eyes of (far too) many (especially those in power), it’s important to teach our children (while being role models) that everyone has a unique (hi)story, set of interests and goals, hopes and dreams, and they are all of equal value. Such recognition of the worth of diversity in our social circles is a pathway to seeing we can learn from others while learning about ourselves when we step out of our comfort zone and engage with those who are different than we are. This is the beautiful and timely message of No Bear Is an Island . Strength in numbers, communion in community, and the truest truth there is—we all could use a little empathy, help, and compassion to get us t...

  (Naples, FL: Speaking Volumes, 2016). ISBN: 979-8-89022-307-4 It was at the West Virginia Writers Conference in 2012 that I first met Western writer R.G. Yoho. We’ve stayed in contact ever since, as he’s steadily gathered awards for his ten classic Westerns, including this one, written for young audiences. Not only am I a lifelong fan of Westerns on the screen and page; I love and write in numerous genres, which are a special type of literature where the tropes are not only expected—they are the criteria by which the reader judges the writer’s specific contributions. While I was reading Destined to Ride Alone , I was also reading the seventeenth book in Louis L’Amour’s Sackett saga and Comanche Moon , the second book in Larry McMurtry’s Gus and Call tetralogy. Although they are each writing for different audiences, Yoho, L’Amour, and McMurtry are all masters of the Western trope. Destined to Ride Alone (the title itself is the trope of all Western tropes) takes as its cent...

  (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Light on Light Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-958921-72-2 It may come as no surprise that I begin this review by lamenting the state of our world. Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria, Venezuela, Greenland… Grappling with the ramifications and ethics of AI… The condition of the environment and the growing income gap… The nonelected in growing positions of power and policymaking… A cold-blooded murder on a Minneapolis street… Crises in education and healthcare… Living in America, I see all of these issues and more deeply affecting family, friends, and colleagues. We cannot sit hopeless and in fear. That is crystal clear. The level of cognitive dissonance (much of it a highly coordinated, insidious attack on the masses as a means toward greater control by the half-percent) feels, in my 57 years, to be wholly unprecedented—its concentration and ubiquity a result of the wholesale adoption of social media and other carefully crafted-for-control (yes, that word again) technolog...

 (Precocity Press, 2022). ISBN: 979-8-9851494-6-3 A 2023 Nautilus Silver Award Winner, this ambitious text (apt that it is published by a press called Precocity) encapsulates the evolution of life from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present, before postulating at length about the possibilities and pitfalls of colonizing space, the Moon, and, far less likely, Mars. With Space X sending up another rocket as I write this review and Disclosure in the news cycle at an unprecedented, eye-opening level, coinciding with a UAP/drone mystery that held America enrapt through the holidays, the subject of colonizing space is certainly topical and worthy of our attention and consideration. After earning an MA in microbiology, Richard M. Anderson went on to a distinguished career as a clinical laboratory bioanalyst, and he brings considerable knowledge to bear over the course of 326 pages. Armed with Anderson’s table of extinction and evolution events (which has a companion tabl...

 (Next Chapter 2021). ASIN: B08VH2Z8GK This is the third book I have reviewed from architect and author Pete Adams. The first two were Dead No More (Rhubarb Papers Book 1) in 2021 and Rite Judgement (DaDa Detective Agency Book 2) in 2022. Although all three books are situated in different series, they are united in a single, whimsical world (the 14-book Hegemon Chronicles, of which 11 are written) where multinational corporations, British police and intelligence agencies, and religious organizations come to brilliant life in Adams’s surrealist, socially conscious, quick-witted world. If you are interested in comparisons, Robert Anton Wilson, James Joyce, William S. Burroughs, and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and Baudolino immediately come to mind.  Like the authors mentioned above, Adams’s intelligence and facility with history, society, culture, politics, and economics are readily apparent, as is the transdisciplinary nature of his themes. For instance, Rite Judgement ha...

  (Serene Publications, 2016). ISBN: 978-0-9949968-0-0 As a lifelong creative and professional storyteller, I have very fond memories of a whole host of animated, narrated stories that kept me enrapt as a child. There is Sebastian Cabot and the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and friends, the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials (with narrators like Fred Astaire and Burl Ives), the animated Tolkien adaptations, The Secret of NIMH , and my favorite, The Flight of Dragons . Their pacing, color palette, themes, music, tensions, and A-list voice talent all worked together to transport, educate, challenge, and comfort me. Perhaps most importantly, they inspired me to do the work to which I have devoted my life. Carole Elaine Borgens’s The Curious Adventures of Flossie the Cat , from its opening illustrations (by Ros Webb Design) and very first enticing words (“… And thus began the journey”), immediately brought me back to those days of my childhood and early teenage years. The Curious A...

    (MG Cobb Books LLC, 2022). ISBN: 978-0-578-37143-6 A few months ago, I reviewed Mike Cobb’s exquisite work of historical fiction, Dead Beckoning , set in 1895 in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Cotton States and International Exhibition. In my review, I said, with no exaggeration, that it easily holds its place on the bookshelf next to Caleb Carr’s Alienist novels. When I learned that Cobb had also written a contemporary crime thriller (also with aspects of historical truth), and that another, connected novel, was due to be published in the next couple of months, I happily rearranged my schedule to read The Devil You Knew and write this review. It did not disappoint. As a matter of fact, its being in many ways distinct from, yet equally (if not more) impactful and emotion provoking than Dead Beckoning , cements my opinion that Mike Cobb is a writer fans of this genre should be reading. Taking place in 1963 before moving forward to 1980, The Devil You Knew centers o...

(Self-published, 2009/2023). ISBN: 979-8-85775-271-5 In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report with the following statistics on the prevalence of obesity in America: 39.8% among adults aged 20 to 39 years, 44.3% among adults aged 40 to 59 years, and 41.5% among adults aged 60 and older. The CDC defines obesity as a Body Mass Index of 30 or above. A few weeks ago, I reviewed a book linking eating disorders with past life traumas. As I say in that review, although the case studies are compelling and the past life exercises had a lot of value, the first step is to explore what is happening in your current life that may be leading to overeating. Why Am I Eating This? provides resources for those ready to find answers to the question posed in my review. This is a new, expanded edition, covering cutting-edge topics such as the gut–brain connection. It offers additional questions Robertson has devised since the book’s original release in 2009. ...

  (Precocity Press, 2024). ISBN: 979-8-9892043-7-3 From Waffle House waitress to millionaire investment professional (achieved by the age of 40), Stephanie Geller is a modern success story. Throughout this series of anecdotes that travel back and forth through time, grouped thematically with section titles such as “Work Hard, Play Hard” and “Not Everyone Gets a Trophy,” Geller proves that Authenticity is key and, if you prefer high heels, your footwear never has to change as you go from rags to riches. From its short, sharp, whimsically rendered sentences to its road-less-traveled humor and celebrations of victory in loss, You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up: Stories of a Badass Life is proof positive that how we choose to live and tell our story truly matters. There are divorces, deaths, and more than a few debacles in both her childhood and adulthood (with an adolescence that plays as pure cinematic 1980s teen dramedy). Through it all, Geller is never afraid to embark on the Hero’s ...

  (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2021). ISBN: 978-0-7387-6445-0 For those who follow my blogs, read my novels, and listen to my podcast, it will come as no surprise that I embraced the opportunity to read and review this book and get to communicate with its talented author. I have been fascinated since I was a boy with all things werewolf and lupine. It of course began with films like The Wolf Man , although, as I got older and embarked on my journey as a writer and spiritual practitioner, I began to explore in increasing depth the history of European werewolves, Viking berserkers, Celtic/Teutonic werewolf lore, Absaroka and Navajo skinwalkers/shapeshifters, and animal totems. I also have a child who, during their teenage years, identified as a therian with a special relationship to the wolf—even wearing a two-foot faux wolf fur tail everywhere they went. First and foremost, I want you to be aware that Werewolf Magick is a serious work of scholarship and magickal pract...

  (Prince George, BC, Canada: Dimensionfold Publishing, 2021). ISBN: 9781989940020 We live in an increasingly humorless world, where language is increasingly regulated (and manipulated) and, should you say what is deemed by a certain sector to be the wrong thing , you might just be “canceled” by the swiping, judgmental (read righteous) left thumb of the judgers on social media. In such a sensitive, unsophisticated world, novels such as Munchausen by Proxy for Fun and Profit —written by a father and son—are essential reading. They take on serious subjects (in this case, the illegal sale of prescription drugs) and invite us to see them in a different, nuanced way—through the motivations of the often simple-minded everyday people who deem these courses of action as their only means to participating in Rabid Capitalism. A Cash-Grab Extravaganza from which they imagine everyone else on the planet but them is benefiting. In “real life,” if these dreaming schemers’ stories are inte...

  (Toronto: Prometea Press, 2021). ISBN: 9781777135133 Several weeks ago I reviewed Wes Roberts’s first book, Intersections , cowritten with Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist who helped the author retrieve memories from numerous abductee/contactee experiences he has had over the course of his life. Written three years later, An Experiencer’s Garden is a different type of book, and my focus here will therefore be different as well. While Intersections details Roberts’s experiences (both remembered on his own and through a series of hypnotic regression sessions), the follow-up is even more personal and intimate. At its core are Roberts’s theories and realizations about what has been happening to him since childhood and possible reasons why. In a time of dangerous, misleading “disclosure” by the military–industrial–intelligence complex (most likely to fatten the budget of the “new” Space Force and private defense contractors not answerable to Congress...

   (Crimson Dragon Publishing, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-944644-23-9 There is no greater expression of joy than singing. Whether it is in tune, out of tune, lip-synching, a parody, or something created on Songify, nothing brings in the YouTube or TikTok numbers like a committed singer and their commitment to a song. Pop and rock singers are the superstars of American culture. The most successful make millions for a show and live like kings and queens. Although less popular and wealthy, Broadway stars are the heroes of countless high school and college musical theatre students, most of whom will never have the opportunity to stand in the spotlight on the Great White Way and have that moment of song in the sun. Keeping this in mind, Ella English’s mission with Katy on Broadway , and I am sure with the larger Kitty in the City series, is, in a word, wonderful: “Enjoy the sound of your children singing, no matter what it sounds like.” I know from personal experience with one of my ...