Neophyte

by Rachel Newhouse

308 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 17, 2026

About the author

Rachel 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.

Reviews

[Jonathan Lovelace]

The outcome I was half-expecting, for a character I never expected ... "I'm here for it."

For the last few books in the Red Rain series, I've been half-expecting to see series protagonist Philadelphia Smyrna bring a gospel invitation to Asia Mong, the daughter of the supreme leader of the totalitarian United who was herself personally behind nearly every negative event that has happened to most of "our heroes" over the course of the entire series. And I wasn't sure whether I was anticipating or dreading this twist; we've already had one criminal genius switch sides early on in the series, and while it's entirely the sort of thing that God would do in the story he has written that we call "real life," it would feel contrived and overdone in fiction.

But apparently I missed the crucial detail in False Flag that Asia died in its climax. And while the pivotal scene of Neophyte is the conversion of a major character, it's not anyone so obvious as Asia would have been (though in retrospect this does flow naturally from previous stories), and it's not Philli (nor even primarily Nic) presenting the gospel. Brava!

I'm less in favor of what immediately follows, revealing that the form of Christianity the characters all share is highly charismatic: after "praying the sinner's prayer", the new convert is led to pray to receive the filling of the Holy Spirit as a separate blessing, and told to expect to hear him as an audible Voice (as all of the major point-of-view characters in the series do). And Nic recognizes the other character's forceful presentation of hard truths (leading up to the gospel call) as "prophesying". Since my convictions are strongly Reformed, I have reservations ... but I consider this a "content warning" to be aware of, not a reason to avoid reading this book.

This is just one of the threads from "the series so far" that Neophyte picks up and weaves together to advance the story as a whole, bringing us palpably closer to a resolution that I otherwise can't yet predict. Much of this takes the form of yet more "intensive recomplication," revealing details that change the characters' (and our) perspective on past events again ... but it's been a good long while since Mrs. Newhouse almost "overdrew her authorial credit" on that front, so I shouldn't have been so surprised.

I would suggest that readers new to the series start with earlier entries, but for those who have the background of previous books, Neophyte is highly recommended.

A fuller review followed on my blog. I received a "free" advance electronic copy of Neophyte as a financial supporter on the author's Patreon.

[Reuben Leibel]

I got this three days before it released and I literally couldn’t put it down. I literally read it in less than three days and I had school. Anyway to the actual point of the review. This was SUCH A GOOD BOOK!! Like it is sooo good! It is full of adrenaline and scream laughing!! It has a couple of awesome twists that you never see coming! It is one of my favorite books of all in this series and is in competition for one of my favorite books of all time!! So I highly recommend reading but start with the first book in the series if you haven’t read them yet