Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Outskirts Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-9772-7562-2 A tried and true adage for first-time novelists is write what you know. Writing novels is a difficult endeavor (as W. Somerset Maugham famously quipped, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are”) and the seasoned author controls everything they can. According to George Yuhasz’s back-cover bio, he is a “former US Government special agent, intelligence officer, and contractor. He has also worked in the private sector as an investigator and security consultant.” It is clear he wrote about what he knows in Righteous Allegiance , which takes far-right White Christian Nationalism, especially among former members of the military, as its central subject. Written with the technical expertise of an insider (I mentored a novelist for many years who was a former lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence, and I recognize the signs), Righteous Allegiance is topical and frightening. Yuhasz’s extremists ar...

  Oftentimes, when an author finds success in a particular genre, style of writing, or “voice,” they are content to remain in that level of craft that they have worked so hard to achieve. This is understandable. There are benefits to having your growing and loyal audience know exactly what they are getting when they open one of your books. Many bestselling authors have followed this formula and found it satisfying, lucrative, and essential to their longevity. Lucky for the readers of Mike Cobb’s historical fiction, the author of Dead Beckoning , The Devil You Knew , and You Will Know Me By My Deeds has, with his latest offering (a novella), adjusted ever so slightly, but meaningfully, both his voice and writing style. This cues to his growing audience that there is plenty more to come from this gifted craftsman and storyteller. In interviews with me, and elsewhere, Cobb has stated he primarily follows his characters when deciding where to take the story, without doing a larg...