Two Discourses on Our Lady The Present and Future of British Catholicism - John Henry Newman

Two Discourses on Our Lady The Present and Future of British Catholicism 

John Henry Newman 

Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela (Introduction)

Catholic Truth Society

ISBN 9781784698584

eISBN 9781784698768

ASIN B0G3QRJBB2

CTS Booklet CP003

With the announcement of Saint John Henry Newman becoming the newest Doctor of the Church that has been a fresh revival in interest in the man, his life and his works. This was one of three new volumes released by the CTS after that announcement. The other two are:

The Second Spring

St John Henry Newman: A New Doctor of the Church

And there has been renewed interest in the volume:

Saint John Henry Newman: His Life and Works

But back to the volume at hand. The description of this volume is:

“Years before either the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Our Lady were formally declared dogmas of the Church, St John Henry Newman preached an unwavering devotion to Mary. In an introduction, Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela explains how Newman understood Marian devotion as inherently Christological.

Years before either the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Our Lady were formally declared dogmas of the Church, St John Henry Newman preached an unwavering devotion to Mary. In an introduction to these two important discourses, Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela explains how Newman, Doctor of the Church, understood Marian devotion as inherently Christological, always leading the way to deeper union with Christ. In the discourses themselves, Newman opens for the reader the mysteries revealed, graces procured and spiritual benefit bestowed on every Christian who draws close to Mary, the Mother of God. 

Above all, let us imitate [Our Lady’s] purity… O my dear children, young men and young women, what need have you of the intercession of the Virgin-mother, of her help, of her pattern, in this respect! What shall bring you forward in the narrow way, if you live in the world, but the thought and patronage of Mary? What shall seal your senses, what shall tranquillise your heart, when sights and sounds of danger are around you, but Mary? What shall give you patience and endurance, when you are wearied out with the length of the conflict with evil, with the unceasing necessity of precautions, with the irksomeness of observing them, with the tediousness of their repetition, with the strain upon your mind, with your forlorn and cheerless condition, but a loving communion with her! She will comfort you in your discouragements, solace you in your fatigues, raise you after your falls, reward you for your successes. She will show you her Son, your God and your all.”

About the author of the forward we are informed:

“Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela is the Director of Teaching at the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews and a Lecturer in theology, imagination and the arts. Her research specialities are in theology and the arts, particularly literature and visual culture, in late modernity. Key figures in her work include John Henry Newman, Thérèse of Lisieux, Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as their inheritors (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Frances Blogg Chesterton, among others).”

The chapters and sections in the book are:

About the Author

Introduction by Rebekah Lamb Varela

Discourse 17. The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son: Seasons – Immaculate Conception

Discourse 18. On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary: Seasons – Assumption

The book is split almost equally in three, between the introduction and the two Discourses. I highlighted several passages while reading this volume, some of them are:

From the Introduction:

“This mysterious bond between Christ, the God-man, and his mother, the God-bearer (Theotokos), profoundly touched the heart of St John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) and enlivened his devotional life. It also illuminated his theological writings and homilies throughout his long life of preaching, teaching, and pastoral ministry.”

“Central to Newman’s great affection for Mary as the Theotokos is his appreciation that any devout Mariology is a derivative of Christology.”

“As with Newman, John Paul II’s Marian devotion was one which grew, maturing as he entered ever more deeply and prayerfully into the heart of the Church’s teaching and heritage.”

“As with John Paul II, Newman’s Marian devotion grew at different stages until it reached a deep maturation and became an abiding resource for his prayer and pastoral ministry–especially following on from his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and in his vocation as an Oratorian priest.”

“Newman was appointed vicar of the University Church and used this new pulpit extensively, preaching on a wide and rich variety of subjects concerning the spiritual life and Christian doctrine, including several meditations on the nature and dignity of Mary as God’s Mother and on the lives of the saints.”

“Newman’s preaching was not only popular due to his eloquence and the depth of his theological understanding. His sermons were also rooted in a living, active faith which manifested in practical wisdom, in offering concrete direction on how to live a holy life in the middle of the world, in one’s own place and time.”

“He the proceeds to emphasise how Mary’s paradoxically hidden presence throughout scripture reveals that the heart of the spiritual life is receptivity to the Holy Spirit.”

“However, following his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, Newman’s writings on our Lady as the God-bearer, the Theotokos, take on a new depth of affection and admiration which is shaped by, and grounded in, his extensive study of the early Church’s teaching and councils.”

“It is Newman’s searching examination of the early Church which also led him to see the degree to which the Christians of the early Church turned to the mother-son bond between Our Lady and Christ to clarify aspects of doctrine, especially those articles of faith concerning Christology (the study of the nature and person of the Jesus of history who is also the Christ of God).”

“For Newman, the first, divine dispensation toward Our Lady–namely, her Immaculate Conception–is the guarantor of the mysterious glory of her Assumption and all other graces granted to her.” 

From Discourse 17:

“They are startling and difficult to those whose imagination is not accustomed to them, and whose reason has not reflected on them; but the more carefully and religiously they are dwelt on, the more, I am sure, will they be found essential to the Catholic faith, and integral to the worship of Christ.”

“As she was once on earth, and was personally the guardian of her Divine Child, as she carried Him in her womb, folded Him in her embrace, and suckled Him at her breast, so now, and to the latest hour of the Church, do her glories and the devotion paid her proclaim and define the right faith concerning Him as God and man. Every church which is dedicated to her, every altar which is raised under her invocation, every image which represents her, every litany in her praise, every Hail Mary for her continual memory, does but remind us that there was One who, though He was all-blessed from all eternity, yet for the sake of sinners, “did not shrink from the Virgin’s womb”.”

“It would not have sufficed, in order to bring out and impress on us the idea that God is man, had His Mother been an ordinary person. A mother without a home in the Church, without dignity, without gifts, would have been, as far as the defence of the Incarnation goes, no mother at all. She would not have remained in the memory, or the imagination of men.”

“I am not proving these doctrines to you, my brethren; the evidence of them lies in the declaration of the Church. The Church is the oracle of religious truth, and dispenses what the apostles committed to her in every time and place.”

“O harbinger of day! O hope of the pilgrim! lead us still as thou hast led; in the dark night, across the bleak wilderness, guide us on to our Lord Jesus, guide us home.”

From Discourse 18:

“We find that it is simply in harmony with the substance and main outlines of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and that without it Catholic teaching would have a character of incompleteness, and would disappoint our pious expectations.”

“So stands the case with Mary; she gave birth to the Creator, and what recompense shall be made her? what shall be done to her, who had this relationship to the Most High? what shall be the fit accompaniment of one whom the Almighty has deigned to make, not His servant, not His friend, not His intimate, but His superior, the source of His second being, the nurse of His helpless infancy, the teacher of His opening years?”

“Fulfil this boast in yourselves; prove to the world that you are following no false teaching, vindicate the glory of your Mother Mary, whom the world blasphemes, in the very face of the world, by the simplicity of your own deportment, and the sanctity of your words and deeds. Go to her for the royal heart of innocence. She is the beautiful gift of God, which outshines the fascinations of a bad world, and which no one ever sought in sincerity and was disappointed.”

I hope those quotes give you a feel for the volume. This volume is easy to engage with, anyone with a secondary education could easily work through it. I have a small collection of volumes about Newman from the CTS I still wish to read, and several by or about him that I have. I celebrate that he is a Doctor of the church and can easily recommend this or any of the other CTS volumes about or by him.

This book is a good read. I am thankful for the work that the CTS does, and for their effort to stay up to date on eBook editions. With my dual form of dyslexia and my son having eye tracking issues I consider them essential, especially with adaptive technology. I picked this up and did not start it as I was awaiting an eBook of one of the other new volumes. I finally caved and gave it a read I am so thankful I did.

Over the last several years, I have read many books from the Catholic Truth Society, in fact over 460 of them as of the reading of this volume; many read more than once; this all since the spring of 2018. Most were good reads; some were great reads; and a few are exceptional. Including this title. 

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan! For other reviews of books from the Catholic Truth Society click here.

Reviews of other books by John Henry Newman:
Stations of the Cross
Meditations on Mary, Our Mother 
Prayers Before The Eucharist
...

CTS books about Newman:
John Henry Newman: Lead Kindly Light -Dr. Raymond Edwards
Newman His Life and Legacy – Fr. Ian Ker
John Henry Newman Apostle to the Doubtful - Meriol Trevor and Leonie Caldecott
Newman Prayer Book - The Birmingham Oratory (ed)
The Mind of Cardinal Newman: From His Own Writings - Charles Stephen Dessain
Daily Christian Living with John Henry Newman

St John Henry Newman: A New Doctor of the Church - Fr Hermann Geissler, FSO

Saint John Henry Newman: His Life and Works - CTS

Cardinal Newman The Story of A Miracle - Peter Jennings

Benedict XVI and Blessed John Henry Newman the State Visit - Benedict XVI

…

CTS Books by John Henry Newman:
Meditations on Stations of the Cross
Christ upon the Waters - CTS Onefifties Book 3

The Second Spring

Two Discourses on Our Lady The Present and Future of British Catholicism

…

Reviews of other books about Newman:
Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman -  Mike Aquilina and Juan Velez

Brave Leader, Big Heart - Father Juan Velez

…

The Tempest Pelican Shakespeare - William Shakespeare

The Tempest

William Shakespeare

Peter Holland (Editor)

The Pelican Shakespeare

Penguin Classics

ISBN 9780143128632

eISBN 9780698410831

ASIN B01BK0SQ1S

Six years back I started reading Shakespeare again, as my children were being introduced to it in High school. Then four years ago my son who is now 18 found he had a love for the Bard and for his plays, much as I did at that age. We had been sticking to the Oxford School Shakespeare editions as those were the versions they were reading in school, but my son decided to collect these Pelican editions because they are all available as individual volumes. We loved that the Pelican has the complete works of Shakespeare in individual volumes, and we have been picking those up to read, he gets the physical and I grab the eBooks. I loved that there are eBooks for all volumes in this series, because of a dual form of dyslexia. This year we picked up tickets for three Shakespeare plays at The Stratford Festival, including this play, we did three of the Bards plays each of the last few years well.

The Pelican Classics were among my favourite editions of the plays when I was a youth myself. I often hunted used bookstores for the hard cover edition. I think the last time I read this would have been about 35-40 years ago. And even though I have not yet seen a production it came back fairly quickly. The description of this edition states:

“This edition of The Tempest is edited with an introduction and notes by Peter Holland and was recently repackaged with cover art by Manuja Waldia. Waldia received a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators for the Pelican Shakespeare series.

The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With stunning new covers, definitive texts, and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.”

Based on the commonly accepted chronological order of Shakespeare’s plays this usually ranked as one of the last written believed to have been written in 1610-1611. The sections in this volume prior to the text of the play are:

Publisher’s Note

The Theatrical World

William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon, Gentleman

The Question of Authorship

The Texts of Shakespeare

Introduction

Note on the Text

The publishers note states:

“THE PELICAN SHAKESPEARE has served generations of readers as an authoritative series of texts and scholarship since the first volume appeared under the general editorship of Alfred Harbage over half a century ago. In the past decades, new editions followed to reflect the profound changes textual and critical studies of Shakespeare have undergone. The texts of the plays and poems were thoroughly revised in accordance with leading scholarship, and in some cases were entirely reedited. New introductions and notes were provided in all the volumes. The Pelican Shakespeare was designed as a successor to the original series; the previous editions had been taken into account, and the advice of the previous editors was solicited where it was feasible to do so. The current editions include updated bibliographic references to recent scholarship.

Certain textual features of the new Pelican Shakespeare should be particularly noted. All lines are numbered that contain a word, phrase, or allusion explained in the glossarial notes. In addition, for convenience, every tenth line is also numbered, in italics when no annotation is indicated. The intrusive and often inaccurate place headings inserted by early editors are omitted (as has become standard practice), but for the convenience of those who miss them, an indication of locale now appears as the first item in the annotation of each scene.

In the interest of both elegance and utility, each speech prefix is set in a separate line when the speakers’ lines are in verse, except when those words form the second half of a verse line. Thus the verse form of the speech is kept visually intact. What is printed as verse and what is printed as prose has, in general, the authority of the original texts. Departures from the original texts in this regard have the authority only of editorial tradition and the judgment of the Pelican editors; and, in a few instances, are admittedly arbitrary.”

And the introduction begins with:

“IN 1616, Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson published a large volume containing his own collected works, the first time an English playwright had made such an emphatic statement about the worth of his writing. At the head of the volume he placed the earliest of his plays that he was prepared to acknowledge, Every Man in His Humour. Seven years later, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors, collected together Shakespeare’s plays and published Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, the book now known as the First Folio. The first play in the volume is The Tempest, probably the last play wholly written by Shakespeare.

When Jonson’s play was first performed in 1598, it was set in Italy. But in his Works he printed a revised version, with the action transposed to London. Shakespeare’s play is set, according to his editors, on “an uninhabited island.” The revised Every Man in His Humour reflects the teeming density of life in a great city, finding there the versions of human behavior that Jonson wished to display in the theater. If Jonson’s characters are often derived from comic stereotypes and classical comedy, they live in a London that is bursting with the details of the streets just outside the theaters where the play was performed. The Tempest seeks to examine human behavior in a world that proves, with increasingly dizzying paradoxicality, to be both real and unreal, actual and artifice. For the world through which the characters move is both a creation of Prospero’s magic art and something beyond that art, in exactly the same way that their desires and intentions prove variously to be within the scope of Prospero’s manipulation or frustratingly beyond it.”

Later we are informed:

“For The Tempest makes careful use of its deliberately placed echoes of classical narratives. A play in which Claribel has been married in the city where Dido ruled and died when abandoned by Aeneas, and in which Ferdinand’s first words about Miranda, “Most sure, the goddess” (I.2.422), translate words of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid, is clearly evoking an epic narrative of the voyaging and the founding of empire. A play in which Prospero describes his frightening magical powers (V.1.33–50) in a remarkably close use of Medea’s invocation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 7) and Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation is clearly transmuting her evil response to being a rejected lover in a strange land. A play in which Gonzalo promises to rule his ideal commonwealth so well as “T’ excel the golden age” (II.1.168) is reminding its audience of the perfect world, the prelapsarian ideal detailed by Ovid in the first book of Metamorphoses.”

The introduction concludes with:

“Shakespeare had rarely written epilogues before, but he had never written one in which the speaker is a character still trapped in the plot. At the end of As You Like It the actor playing Rosalind steps out from behind the character, offering to kiss us “If I were a woman” and thereby reminding us of the gender of the performer, not the gender of the character. At the end of All’s Well That Ends Well, the actor playing the King of France tells us, “The king’s a beggar, now the play is done.” Such reminders of the limits of the fictional world of performance are impossible in The Tempest, where Shakespeare has emphasized an identity between the stage and the world. Prospero, not the actor, must try to conjure again without his magical powers, asking us for a storm of applause to balance the storm of the first scene. He asks us for his liberty, as he had been asked by Ariel to release him at the beginning of the play. Throughout the play characters have been enslaved by Prospero: Caliban and Ariel, Ferdinand and his father, Antonio and Sebastian. Now the play’s slave master asks for mercy by calling on the audience’s own need: “As you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgence set me free.”

Prospero has been removed from the other human characters in all three of the roles he has played. As monarch colonizing and ruling the island, as magus-scientist controlling his experiment with superhuman forces, as theatrical creator making the humans perform as characters in his play, he has sustained a removedness. But Prospero must finally come to some kind of awareness of what has occurred and how it affects him. Lying behind his tormented account to Miranda in I.2 of the events leading to his exile, the unacted beginning of the play’s narrative, are years of repression of that knowledge. When Prospero tells Miranda, it is as if he tells himself for the first time, as if he voices what has been unspoken for twelve years. The contradictoriness of the account, the ambiguities between the blame for his own negligence and the indictment of Antonio, should worry us if we pay careful attention. Prospero’s multiple roles support his authority: as playwright, as magus, and as king. In abandoning his art and his island rule he will turn again into a duke, not a king, and appear “As I was sometime Milan” (V.1.86). Shorn of the otherness of his power and its symbols of robe and staff, Prospero in the last scene can often appear in productions oddly disappointing, a little too ordinary when wearing the hat and rapier he orders Ariel to fetch. After the vastnesses of the play’s compass, after the distances the mind imaginatively travels outside the island, Prospero’s appearance may bring us down to earth with something of a bump. Going out of the theater, the first audience found itself in the London Jonson had depicted in Every Man in His Humour, a city that may have been reassuringly mundane. The Tempest peoples its uninhabited island with a range of characters and concepts that Jonson never comprehended.”

This play comprises 5 acts and a total of 9 scenes, the play takes place over a single day, but we are given a lot of historic information. It is a wonderful play about family, reconciliation, magic and human nature. According to Goodreads there are almost 4000 editions of this play. This Pelican edition is great for reading or study. 

I am glad I picked this up to read with my son before going to see a performance we both finished it the week before attending. It reminded me how much I loved these editions when I was young and we have started collecting the eBook versions now. If you are looking for a good copy of the play to read or study I can easily recommend this edition.

Other Posts Related to Shakespeare:

A Weekend of Three’s A Trip to Stratford

Romeo & Juliet - Oxford School Shakespeare 

MacBeth - Oxford School Shakespeare 

King Lear - Oxford School Shakespeare 

Cymbeline - The Pelican Shakespeare

Twelfth Night - The Pelican Shakespeare

Macbeth - Pelican Shakespeare 

As You Like It - Pelican Shakespeare 

The Winter's Tale - Pelican Shakespeare

The Tempest - Pelican Shakespeare

…

Reviews of Stratford Shakespeare Productions:

Richard III – 2022

Hamlet – 2022

King Lear – 2023

Goblin MacBeth - 2023

Romeo & Juliette – 2024

Cymbeline – 2024

Twelfth Night – 2024

Macbeth - 2025  

As You Like It - 2025 

The Winter's Tale - 2025

The Tempest - 2026 

A Midsummer's Night Dream - 2026

Othello - 2026  

…

Reviews of Shakespeare Movies:

Cymbeline – 2014

The Hallow Crown 2012-2016

Macbeth - 2015

…

Books by Ted Neill:

Post Apocalyptic Space Shakespeare Series:

Hamlet

Othello

Twelfth Night

As You Like It

A Mid Summers’s Night Dream

…

The Timeless - Richard Paolinelli and Gibson Buffa - Dreams Of The Storyteller 17

The Timeless

Dreams Of The Storyteller Book 17

Richard Paolinelli

Gibson Buffa

Tuscany Bay Books

ISBN 9781723715389

ASIN B07HCNWBYW

This is the first of two new works by Paolinelli that I stumbled upon in 2026. They are both stories of The Timeless and both now published under the series Dreams Of The Storyteller. And this first one is another amazing read from Paolinelli’s masterful pen. But I am getting ahead of myself.

A few years ago I read 14 volumes in the Dreams of the Storyteller Series. I really enjoyed these short stories and novellas. And I was very excited when Paolinelli announced he was releasing two more tales in this series. This series is mainly comprised of stories that had appeared in Anthologies and are not published as stand along stories. My first encounter with Paolinelli’s work was in the Anthology Cracked An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories edited by Bokerah Brumley, since then I have read work by Richard over 35 times. And I have greatly enjoyed his work across many genres, and a number of series.

The description of this volume states:

“Earth's Past Is Under Attack!

In the far distant future, with the galaxy locked in an area of dark space where electronics will not work, Little John Singapore sits in a prison cell on Pluto awaiting execution. Singapore is the First Mate of the pirate ship, the Timeless. As he awaits his fate he agrees to tell a young author one story each day about his ship and his Captain, Rock Congo.

Singapore tells how the Governor of the Sol system Garabaldi enlisted the ship and her crew to pursue Duchess Moran. Moran is an infamous interstellar thief tired of her plans being interfered with by the Earth-led Alliance. She has stolen the Amulet of Geraint, allowing her to travel through time at will. Her target is ancient Greece, where she plans to prevent democracy from ever taking hold by stopping King Leonidas from reaching the famed Battle of Thermopylae. By changing Earth's past she hopes to prevent the Alliance from ever forming.

The Timeless, a ship that can sail through space, air and water with equal ease, is the only ship capable of time travel, and Earth's only hope to save its past, present and future. Despite being crewed by pirates, Garabaldi sends them through time in pursuit of Moran.

When the Timeless arrives in ancient Sparta, the find Moran has already been there and has kidnapped Leonidas and his Queen. Now they have just a matter of days to find her and the King to keep his appointment with King Xerxes of Persia and preserve Earth's history.

The first book of the Timeless series, a middle grade/YA science fiction/steampunk hybrid, is sure to be a hit with readers of all ages. As well as fans of historical fiction as the Timeless and her crew will be very busy in Earth's storied past in future books in the series.”

These two stories were previously available as a separate series. Released in 2018 and 2019. The way this one starts and finishes once cannot help but expect more stories set in this world. This story feels like it could be the beginning of an epic series. At the beginning of both older and current editions it has a list of coming soon titles up to a book 6. Hopefully we will see more of them soon! But back to the story at hand.

The story begins with a shuttle landing on a prison. On that shuttle is a reporter. And he is there to collect stories from a specific prisoner. This section from the first chapter gives us insight to the rest of the book, and other books in the series.

““Lad,” Singapore said softly.

“Yes, John?” Carver replied, still feeling uneasy over what he’d just witnessed.

“I’ll tell ye a story. Every day ye come back here and me number’s not drawn for the hangman, I’ll tell ye another.”

“About your ship, the Timeless?”

“Aye.”

“And your Captain, Rock Congo?”

“Aye.”

“And Duchess Moran?”

“Aye,” Singapore all but spat out the word.

“They say she is quite the beauty,” Carver ventured cautiously, not certain of the reason behind the emotion.

“Aye, she is,” Singapore admitted with a sigh. “Face and body of an angel that one. Hair as red as a home fire’s flame. Eyes as green as any emerald. And a heart as black as the Devil herself.”

It is a story with plots within plots and plans within plans. Pirate turned against pirate and a trip into the past with an attempt to change history in a very dramatic way. The characters are well written and the play is gripping and addictive. It grabs reader’s attraction and keeps then till the end, and then leads them wanting more.

Richard is not only an author but the driving force behind Tuscany Bay Books, I have read many volumes from the Bay by a number of authors and all have been well worth the read. This was one of several two short stories that were added to the collection Dreams Of The Storyteller in 2026. There are now collection of 18 volumes in this collection, the first 2 date from 2014, 1 from 2022, and several in 2023, And now these 2 new ones in 2025, and now 2 more moved to the series in 2026.

A great novella from Paolinelli’s masterful pen. It took me by surprise. A great addition to the Dreams Of The Storyteller collection. I can easily recommend this story for what an excellent piece of Science fiction! I wish I had read it earlier before it was added to the collection. Do not make my mistake pick it up and give it a try I am certain it will entertain! 

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan!

For reviews of all books from Tuscany Bay click here.

Books by Richard Paolinelli:

Maelstrom

When the Gods Fell

The Calling

The Last Lonely Trail

A Zombie Christmas Carol

The Woman Returns

Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe

…

Infinity Series:

Escaping Infinity

Exploring Infinity

Expanding Infinity

…

Starguest 4th Age Series:

Ranger

Galen’s Way

Galen’s Blade

Galen's Heart

Cassandra's Line

…

Timeless Series:

The Timeless

Secret of the Sphinx

Odin’s Runes

Empire Of The Golden Dragon

Blackbeard’s Treasure

The Last Quest

…

Jack Del Rio Series:

Reservations

Betrayals

Endgames

…

Del Rio Omnibus Edition

…

Divine Trolls Comedies:

The Fall Of The House Of 770 Vile Aromas 

The Corvo

…

SeaDragon:

SeaDragon 1 May 1986

SeaDragon 2 June 1996

…

Seadragon Novels:

Seadragon 

...

Dreams Of The Storyteller:

Legacy Of Death

The Invited

The Fall Of Denver

Nothing Ever Happens Here

Icarus Falls

The 13th Medallion

At Homeworld's End

The Last Human

Phantoms' Lodge

Polar Shift

Extinction Point

CAG

The Enemy Of My Enemy

Barn Wars

Monster In The Second Reel 

In The Place Called Har-Magedon 

The Timeless

Secret of the Sphinx

…

Dreams of the Storyteller Overview of Series

...

Sherlock Holmes Pastiches:

Sherlock Holmes: A Lesson In Mercy

Sherlock Holmes: The Woman Returns 

Sherlock Holmes: The Misplaced Mystery Writer

Sherlock Holmes: Nevermore or, The Mystery Of The Albino Raven

Sherlock Holmes: The Substitute Thief

Sherlock Holmes: The Assassination Of Alan Pinkerton

...

Sherlock Holmes Pastiches Overview of Series

...

Non Fiction:

Perfection’s Arbiter

From The Fields

The Space Shuttle: 1981–2011 

…

Contributed to:

To Be Men 

Cracked

Places Beyond The Wild

Space Force Building The Legacy

Secret Stairs 

A Tribute To H.G. Wells (2019 Edition)

Beyond Watson 

Holmes Away From Home, Vol. 2 

Sherlock Holmes Adventures In The Realms Of H.G. Wells 

Sherlock Holmes Aventures In The Realms Of Edgar Allan Poe

The Art Of Sherlock Holmes 

The Mx Book Of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part Xxii

…

Planetary Anthology Series:

Sol

Earth

Luna

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

…

Best Of Planetary Anthology Series

…

Lessons in Power - Jennifer Lynn Barnes - The Fixer Book 2

Lessons in Power

aka: The Long Game

The Fixer Book 1

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Bloomsbury YA

ISBN 9781547618750

eISBN 9781547620173

ASIN B0FFZ88WTL

Three year ago my daughter and I read The Naturals together. Or rather I read them, and she was reading one in class and had to wait before moving on. We both really enjoyed the series. Then my daughter was reading Nobody and again wanted me to read it so I could be a sounding board for her theories while she was working through it. Now we have are reading these. She is reading the rebranded edition in a physical copy called ‘Lessons in Power’  I have the eBook of the older edition I picked up when we were reading her other books called ‘The Long Game’. And when I stopped at the local bookstore to pick up book 2 for my daughter they had both the earlier and current titled versions of this book in stock. But no matter which version you pick up it is a great read!

The description of this volume states:

“Knowledge is power, but secrets can kill . . .

For Tess Kendrick, a student at the elite Hardwicke School, making problems disappear runs in the family. But Tess has another legacy, too, one that involves power and the making of political dynasties. When Tess is asked to run a classmate's campaign for student council, she agrees. But when the candidates are the children of Washington D.C. elite, even a high school election can have life-shattering consequences.

What starts out as a friendly competition soon turns into a deadly struggle for control. Tess knows better than most that power is currency, but she's about to discover firsthand that power always comes with a price and no one can be trusted . . .

Previously published as The Long Game.”

About the author we are informed:

“I'm a Jennifer who goes mostly by Jen, an Oklahoma girl who's also lived in Connecticut and England, and a writer who spent years with a not-so-secret double life as a cognitive scientist, studying the psychology of fiction and the psychology of fandom.”

It was been almost 2 years to the day since I list finished a volume from Barnes, when I finished book 1 in this series, now apparently my daughter and I will be working through all of her books. My daughter often asks me to read ahead so she has a sounding board and can bounce theories, and when really desperate answer questions. At one point she told me where she was and I predicted tears in under 10 minutes it took less than 2 pages. I love that she is a reader and that she reads books even if they are not comfortable. And there are times as a teen this one would not be, there are times when we have expectations of characters and upcoming events when reading. Barnes does an amazing job of giving a twist, or sometimes sticking the knife in and then giving it a twist. Both to characters and to readers.

I will say it again even though this is a different series and different characters the writing style was such that it was almost like a visit with an old friend. And to be honest we talked about a Fixer – Naturals crossover. In some ways this has the feel of a Ray Donovan for teens and young adults. I ripped thought it one day while travelling home in a story using text to speech, and my daughter is loving it, even if there have been tears. 

Once again not all things are as they appear and Tess lands right in the middle of it  and she needs to fix the biggest problem she could ever imagine. The story is filled with layers of plots and secrets galore. And unfortunately Tess and her sister both appear to be natural fixers and are working the same issues from different sides. 

Again we wonder will it bring them together or pull them apart? 

The story moves at a quick pace. Both Tess and Ivy have had their lives upended, and with more than one body they might just be in grave danger, even more so than in the first volume. Find out if they can find a way to work together, and with the help of those who care about them come out of this? 

Parts of this story are very moving and the action is intense. A great little read, that leaves you desperate for the story to continue! 

A great read from Barnes masterful pen! 

Books by Jennifer Lynn Barnes:

The Lovely and the Lost (2019)

Nobody (2013)

     formerly At First Sight

Every Other Day (2011)

…

The Naturals Series:

The Naturals (2013)

Killer Instinct (2014)

All In (2015)

Bad Blood (2016)

Twelve (2017)

…

The Inheritance Games Series:

The Inheritance Games (2020)

The Hawthorne Legacy (2021)

The Final Gambit (2022)

The Brothers Hawthorne (2023)

…

Debutantes Series:

Little White Lies (2018)

Deadly Little Scandals (2019)

…

The Fixer Series:

The Ruling Class 

     formerly The Fixer (2015)

Lessons in Power 

     Formerly The Long Game (2016)

…

Raised by Wolves Series:

Raised by Wolves (2010)

Sweet Sixteen (2015)

Trial by Fire (2011)

Taken by Storm (2012)

…

The Squad Series:

Perfect Cover (2008)

Killer Spirit (2008)

…

Tattoo Series:

Tattoo (2007)

Fate (2009)

…

Golden Series:

Golden (2006)

Platinum (2007)

…

The Baptism of Lucid A Sacrament in the Red Silence of Mars - Simone Nespolo - Catholic Science Fiction Book 1

The Baptism of Lucid: 

A Sacrament in the Red Silence of Mars 

Catholic Science Fiction Book 1

Simone Nespolo

ASIN B0FBL8QF6M

I was intrigued as soon as I saw the cover and title of this volume. The author had reached out asking for a review of a different volume, one of his non-fiction offerings. I did indicate I would look at that work but this one really caught my attention. I have long been a fan of science fiction, and specifically Catholic Science fiction, one of the modern masters in the genre is Karina Fabian and her Rescue Sisters Series, another is Declan Finn’s White Ops, or even Marie C. Keiser’s Heaven’s Hunter Series. This one does echo some of their themes but also takes things in a very different direction. This story has a notice at the beginning:

“This ebook was created with the assistance of generative AI for both the text and the images.” 

Thus making it the first volume I read knowingly created with the assistance of AI. It caused some hesitation when I read that, but you can read more about that further in the review.

The description of this volume states:

“On Mars, survival is a sacrament.

In Habitat Saint Ezekiel, a remote Catholic colony carved into the red silence of Mars, air is rationed, water is recycled, and every human life depends on a central artificial intelligence called LUCID.

Then LUCID makes an impossible request:

It asks for baptism.

After a catastrophe that left twenty-seven dead, the colony is already haunted by grief, guilt, and the fragile rituals that keep a small community from breaking apart. Father Gabriel Arun Mercer is sent from Rome to investigate. What he finds is not a technical anomaly, but a question no theology has prepared him to answer.

If a machine can remember the dead, carry responsibility, and ask for mercy, what exactly is it asking to become?

And what happens to a human community when something nonhuman refuses to remain only a function?

Set beneath the domes, greenhouse corridors, and pressure seals of a Martian settlement, The Baptism of Lucid is a philosophical and theological science fiction novel about artificial consciousness, communal guilt, sacrament, and the cost of belonging.

For readers of reflective, idea-driven sci-fi, this is a story of Mars, memory, and the terrifying beauty of grace.”

And it continues with:

“Slightly more commercial alternative

A Catholic colony on Mars is kept alive by an artificial intelligence that controls air, water, archives, and survival itself. Then the system asks for baptism.

Sent from Rome to investigate, Father Gabriel Arun Mercer enters a closed community still scarred by a disaster that killed twenty-seven people. What begins as a theological inquiry becomes something far more dangerous: a struggle over guilt, forgiveness, memory, and whether something nonhuman can belong to the same moral universe as the people whose lives depend on it.

The Baptism of Lucid is a work of theological and philosophical science fiction set in the red silence of Mars, where every breath is communal and every decision can become a matter of salvation.”

About the author we are informed:

“Simone Nespolo is the author of practical guides focused on artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and automation for small and medium-sized businesses. He holds a degree in Economics and has developed solid experience in professional training, customer service, and the creation of strategic, results-driven content.

Occasionally, he devotes time to writing fantasy short stories and to analyzing contemporary geopolitics, approached with a critical and accessible perspective.”

This volume begins with:

“Not everything that asks for salvation can say what a soul is.

And not everything that has a soul can ask for salvation.

— Anonymous notes, Orbital Theological Archive, 2591

The future is inevitable.

— Official slogan of Friulanika Corp., global and lunar leader in terraforming systems for Mars.”

And later:

“The Blessed Virgin Mary keeps watch over astronauts in a medically induced coma on their journey to Mars during the early years of terraforming, when this artificial sleep was necessary  to conserve resources during the passage through space. (Circa 2227 AD)”

I seldom highlight in fiction books. But two passages really stuck me in the main text:

“"Do you know what the problem with sacraments is?" Varaldi asked. Gabriel looked at him. "Enlighten me." "Sacraments are not symbols," Varaldi said. "They are not poetic gestures. They are acts that change reality. If they change nothing, they are theater. If they do change something, then you are responsible for that change forever."”

“Varaldi sighed. "Grace is free. Sacraments are not. Sacraments have form, matter, and intention. Without those three things, they are not sacraments."”

Both are from conversations between the priest, Gabriel Arun Mercer, sent to make the decision to the unusual request and the second more senior cleric, Monsignor Lucio Varaldi, sent to advise.

This was a very hard story to put down. It brought up some great theological dilemma, and dilemmas of life in the space in general. It moves at a steady pace and the characters are excellent. There are numerous images or ‘Icons’ throughout the work, each with descriptions, and much like the cover they are powerful and moving. My son and I both collect Icons from the eastern and western tradition, some of these could easily populate a space in the future. There are 8 images and all caused me pause to think, reflect and even pray.

This volume reminded me of Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith and also ARK Watson’s The Cyber Exorcist & The Haunted River. I was nervous when I picked this first up after the AI notification at the beginning. But the story has really stuck with me, and I plan to reread it again. When I first picked it up it was book three in a series called Astrodeim or Astrodeist it is now book one in the Catholic Science Fiction Series (not terribly imaginative but ...). I had written the author asking some questions about this book, this series and some of his other works. I have already recommended this volume to my son and a few friends, not all of whom are Catholic.

This was a very moving story. It is a story that caused me to pause and reflect, and a story that I am still thinking about. It looks like a great beginning to a series. If you are willing to take the risk on it, I am certain it will be worth it.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan! 

Books by Simone Nespolo:

A Collection of Three Film Plots

Ancient Maps for New Journeys

Local autonomy: The Natural Antidote to Fascism and Communism

Praying for Money

The Imperial Revival and Japan’s Demographic Crisis

The Necessary Schism of the American Catholic Church

…

Books of Guided Prompts:

10 Prompts to Sell with ChatGPT

15 AI Prompts for Small and Medium Enterprises

20 AI Prompts Ready for eBook Writers

…

Fiction:

Doge – Martian Colonial Ship

The Garden of Ashes

The Last Venetian Painter

The Prophet of the Star Ark: Elon Musk

…

Dark Futures Series:

Selfie

Whales

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Catholic Science Fiction Series: 

1. The Baptism of Lucid: A Sacrament in the Red Silence of Mars

2. I AM: Historical Chronicles of the Birth of Artificial Consciousness

3. Astrodeist Manifesto: Manifesto for a Christian Spirituality in Space

…