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Red Rain #7
Jonah
God didn't choose you, Philadelphia.
The year is 2076. Earth is ruled by a one-world government. In order to maintain unity, all citizens must deny their national, racial, and religious identities—or suffer the consequences.
Stranded on Earth and haunted by a powerful nemesis, Dr. Nic and his ward Philadelphia Smyrna flee onto the streets of Beijing. With the government calling for their executions, they have no way to buy food, let alone a ticket off the planet. Nic searches for a way to get them off the grid, but he soon discovers that other forces are hunting for Philadelphia. Their former allies in the underground have split into dangerous factions after a failed mission. Both sides see Philadelphia as the key to victory in the brewing war, and both want her back. But Nic will do anything—including sacrifice the revolution—to keep them from finding her.
Jonah is the seventh book in the RED RAIN series, a fast-paced Christian sci-fi adventure that’s perfect for fans of THE HUNGER GAMES and LEFT BEHIND.
The year is 2076. Earth is ruled by a one-world government. In order to maintain unity, all citizens must deny their national, racial, and religious identities—or suffer the consequences.
Stranded on Earth and haunted by a powerful nemesis, Dr. Nic and his ward Philadelphia Smyrna flee onto the streets of Beijing. With the government calling for their executions, they have no way to buy food, let alone a ticket off the planet. Nic searches for a way to get them off the grid, but he soon discovers that other forces are hunting for Philadelphia. Their former allies in the underground have split into dangerous factions after a failed mission. Both sides see Philadelphia as the key to victory in the brewing war, and both want her back. But Nic will do anything—including sacrifice the revolution—to keep them from finding her.
Jonah is the seventh book in the RED RAIN series, a fast-paced Christian sci-fi adventure that’s perfect for fans of THE HUNGER GAMES and LEFT BEHIND.
Kindle Edition
Published February 27, 2024
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About the author
Rachel Newhouse
42 books40 followersRachel Newhouse is an author, wife, secretary, and Sunday school teacher from Kansas City, Missouri. Her obsessions are sci-fi, dystopian, and kid lit. When she’s not writing, she’s cooking Asian food, growing chilis that are too spicy to eat, and watching wildly age-inappropriate shows like My Little Pony and Gravity Falls with her husband, Joe. She also really likes glitter. You’ve been warned.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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May 24, 2024Either the set up was super good or this was very predictable because I called every single thing. O.o. I did have a mild spoiler from the next book's synopsis, but still. Somewhat disappointing. This entry also felt a little on the repetitive side.
I did enjoy Nic's perspective and the continuation of Philli's character arc, though. And the faith content and the cliffhanger.🤌
Read this as a buddy-read with Mikayla for emotional support. 🤍
I did enjoy Nic's perspective and the continuation of Philli's character arc, though. And the faith content and the cliffhanger.🤌
Read this as a buddy-read with Mikayla for emotional support. 🤍
March 23, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story from both Phil’s and Nic’s perspectives, although I found myself torn every chapter. Which one of them is right? Which one am I supposed to be siding with? It all comes together in the end, of course, just in time for a cliffhanger ending I didn’t see coming until the very last second. I can’t wait for the next book to find out what happens.
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April 2, 2025If I don't get at least one piece of hate mail over the ending of this book, I will be extremely disappointed.
That is all.
That is all.
May 27, 2024
Another great book in the series that makes me forget I hate dystopian fiction.
If you're new to the series, strap in, as the opening of this one may be a bit confusing. Rachel Newhouse is good about including enough details in her narratives to bring new readers up to speed on the essentials (as far as I, a longtime reader, can tell), but she also has a habit of ending on cliffhangers and then starting subsequent stories with an action sequence where the last one left off, and Jonah begins with an even faster-paced action sequence than most, so the pauses for exposition to fit into are fewer and farther between for the first several pages.
Jonah picks up where Operation Thunderbird left off, with "naively sheltered teenage pacifist turned revolutionary figurehead" Philadelphia Smyrna and her former nemesis turned dysfunctional father figure Dr. Nic facing off against the woman who seems to have taken over the "series villain" role Nic I'd expected Nic to fill when the first ideas about a "series" were floated (over a decade ago). Events immediately go off the rails again, for both sides, but unlike Crook Q and Prisoner 120518 (which are two views of the same events) this doesn't turn into non-stop action, but rather what we might describe as a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse.
This series has been openly labeled as "Christian fiction" all along (as well as "clean sci-fi" for marketing purposes), and some reviewers criticized the original novella for being "preachy" because the its "main Problem" is the disappearance of every (digital) copy of the Bible (if not just because "totalitarian world government persecutes the Church" is an overused trope, or because they think all fiction that portrays Christianity in a positive light is "preachy" ...), but subsequent "main" entries in the series have mostly not dwelt much on the characters' faith or made its specific nature essential to the story---and there hasn't been time, or space in the stories for such discussion. In Jonah (at nearly 15% longer than Operation Thunderbird, the longest yet), however, Philli's, Nic's, and others' varying relationships to the Christian faith become key elements both to the plot and to their character development. This is a pleasing change.
Since relaunching the Red Rain series in mid-2022, Mrs. Newhouse has added story after story, of increasingly high quality, to it at a dizzying pace, and I've already lost count of how many times the series has outgrown her plans like a lobster outgrowing its shell. Because of this, the fact that very little in any "main entry" in the series was planned from before she began writing that story has been evident all along (not that she hasn't made virtue of necessity, as several stories have twisted our understanding of previously-depicted events into knots without actually retconning). But in Jonah, I finally see something that I think is a clear example of an element planned in advance, a "Chekhov's gun" introduced in Operation Thunderbird and used to great effect here.
As always, as soon as I began to read this book, I was carried along by Mrs. Newhouse's compellingly engaging narrative voice, and couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. However, as with Laodicea, I found it was essentially the same narrative voice throughout; distinguishing point-of-view characters from the tone and vocabulary of the narrative from their perspective is a level of greatness she has not yet achieved. (Chapters are marked with the name of the point-of-view character, and the other character is always either with or on the mind of the point-of-view character, so this is not a problem by any means, just a mark of mastery I keep hoping Mrs. Newhouse develops.)
Jonah continues the series' trajectory from previous entries, adding excitement, suspense, and depth, and meeting the high quality bar set by previous books. Recommended to all fans of the series.
This review is significantly adapted from my review on my blog. I received a "free" advance electronic copy of Jonah as a financial supporter on the author's Patreon.
If you're new to the series, strap in, as the opening of this one may be a bit confusing. Rachel Newhouse is good about including enough details in her narratives to bring new readers up to speed on the essentials (as far as I, a longtime reader, can tell), but she also has a habit of ending on cliffhangers and then starting subsequent stories with an action sequence where the last one left off, and Jonah begins with an even faster-paced action sequence than most, so the pauses for exposition to fit into are fewer and farther between for the first several pages.
Jonah picks up where Operation Thunderbird left off, with "naively sheltered teenage pacifist turned revolutionary figurehead" Philadelphia Smyrna and her former nemesis turned dysfunctional father figure Dr. Nic facing off against the woman who seems to have taken over the "series villain" role Nic I'd expected Nic to fill when the first ideas about a "series" were floated (over a decade ago). Events immediately go off the rails again, for both sides, but unlike Crook Q and Prisoner 120518 (which are two views of the same events) this doesn't turn into non-stop action, but rather what we might describe as a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse.
This series has been openly labeled as "Christian fiction" all along (as well as "clean sci-fi" for marketing purposes), and some reviewers criticized the original novella for being "preachy" because the its "main Problem" is the disappearance of every (digital) copy of the Bible (if not just because "totalitarian world government persecutes the Church" is an overused trope, or because they think all fiction that portrays Christianity in a positive light is "preachy" ...), but subsequent "main" entries in the series have mostly not dwelt much on the characters' faith or made its specific nature essential to the story---and there hasn't been time, or space in the stories for such discussion. In Jonah (at nearly 15% longer than Operation Thunderbird, the longest yet), however, Philli's, Nic's, and others' varying relationships to the Christian faith become key elements both to the plot and to their character development. This is a pleasing change.
Since relaunching the Red Rain series in mid-2022, Mrs. Newhouse has added story after story, of increasingly high quality, to it at a dizzying pace, and I've already lost count of how many times the series has outgrown her plans like a lobster outgrowing its shell. Because of this, the fact that very little in any "main entry" in the series was planned from before she began writing that story has been evident all along (not that she hasn't made virtue of necessity, as several stories have twisted our understanding of previously-depicted events into knots without actually retconning). But in Jonah, I finally see something that I think is a clear example of an element planned in advance, a "Chekhov's gun" introduced in Operation Thunderbird and used to great effect here.
As always, as soon as I began to read this book, I was carried along by Mrs. Newhouse's compellingly engaging narrative voice, and couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. However, as with Laodicea, I found it was essentially the same narrative voice throughout; distinguishing point-of-view characters from the tone and vocabulary of the narrative from their perspective is a level of greatness she has not yet achieved. (Chapters are marked with the name of the point-of-view character, and the other character is always either with or on the mind of the point-of-view character, so this is not a problem by any means, just a mark of mastery I keep hoping Mrs. Newhouse develops.)
Jonah continues the series' trajectory from previous entries, adding excitement, suspense, and depth, and meeting the high quality bar set by previous books. Recommended to all fans of the series.
This review is significantly adapted from my review on my blog. I received a "free" advance electronic copy of Jonah as a financial supporter on the author's Patreon.
March 21, 2024
Red Rain Book 6
This edition is very action packed with several twists and turns. The main characters have plenty of action and it ends with a big cliff hanger!!
This edition is very action packed with several twists and turns. The main characters have plenty of action and it ends with a big cliff hanger!!
February 5, 2026
Whew! Wow. Phil and Nic on the run managed to be both intense and humorous, and also deeply moving. Jael was--something else. I'm trying to stick to just this book, but I feel like the pattern keeps repeating with her--I'm not sure I fully like her, then she does something to make me fully dislike her, then we get an explanation that make me think maybe I was wrong. She's--complex to say the least! I felt so bad for poor Phil by the end of this one, and yet it was amazing to watch Nic's reaction to basically seeing her start down the road he's been traveling for so long. The end was wonderful--and also AWFUL! I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had the next book available! Okay, this review is a mess, but this arc especially was kind of a blur, but it was an amazing kind of blur. Glancing back, I'm reminded that this was the book where we also ran up against certain characters we've seen before--some of whom I loved and one of whom I despised more than ever... Anyway, it was very good. Obviously don't go try to read this as a standalone, but as part of the series, highly recommended!
May 23, 2024
Somehow that was just what I expected and not at all what I expected at once. I'm not sure I want to keep going after that.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews