Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
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The Little Mermaid’s Live-Action Remake Fares Better Than Critics Forecast

Some new songs may flounder, but Ariel’s voice and Triton’s character redeem the 2023 Disney film. · Marian Jacobs

Fantastical books for middle grade readers!

Best for older children ages 8–12
Hamelin Stoop: The Eagle, the Cave, and the Footbridge, Robert B. Sloan.
The Oasis King, Mark David Pullen
Bear Knight, James R. Hannibal
boys’ fiction · girls’ fiction · all fiction
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Top resources

  • Try These Three Practical Questions to Discern Fictional Magic
  • How Do We Discern Good and Bad ‘Magic’?
  • Three Fantastical Christian Stories to Help Your Kids Head Back to School
  • The Death and Rebirth of Magic in Children's Fantasy

The Little Mermaid’s Live-Action Remake Fares Better Than Critics Forecast

Some new songs may flounder, but Ariel’s voice and Triton’s character redeem the 2023 Disney film. · Marian Jacobs

New books for teens + young adults

Best for readers ages 13–18—and beyond!
Hamelin Stoop: The Eagle, the Cave, and the Footbridge, Robert B. Sloan.
Radiant, Ashley Bustamante
Hunt for Eden's Star, D. J. Williams
young men’s · young women’s · all fiction
Lorehaven Guild · Book Quests · subscribe

Top resources

  • Beware the Real Danger of Entertainment
  • Christian-Made Fantasy Can Shine Light in the Grimdark
  • How to Disciple Your Kids with Dangeous Books
  • How Reading Epic Fantasy Helps Me Be Brave
  • Engaging Fictional Violence in Our Real Worlds
  • Engaging That @&*% Our Stories Often Say

The Little Mermaid’s Live-Action Remake Fares Better Than Critics Forecast

Some new songs may flounder, but Ariel’s voice and Triton’s character redeem the 2023 Disney film. · Marian Jacobs

New fiction for adults

Challenging novels for wise readers 18 and up.
The Soul Mark, Jasmine Fisher
The Kingdom of Heaven, Evelyn M. Lewis
War of Torment, Ronie Kendig
men’s fiction · women’s fiction · all fiction
articles · podcast · reviews · subscribe

Top resources

  • Even If We Like Fantasy and Sci-Fi, We Can Still Practice Accidental Legalism
  • How God Uses Story Villains for Our Good
  • Sensual Scenes in Fiction Pose Unique Temptations for Women
  • Stories With Bad Ideas Can Still Help Us Grow
  • Engaging Fictional Violence in Our Real Worlds
  • Engaging That @&*% Our Stories Often Say

Film, streaming, TV, video games

Help your kids engage their world for Christ!
Explore The Pop Culture Parent

Top resources

  • Let’s Not Excuse Movie and TV Porn For the Sake of ‘Redemptive’ Stories
  • Christians Can’t Consistently Blame Leftist Fiction While Pushing Our Own Propaganda

The Little Mermaid’s Live-Action Remake Fares Better Than Critics Forecast

Some new songs may flounder, but Ariel’s voice and Triton’s character redeem the 2023 Disney film. · Marian Jacobs

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Hints at Redemption from Postmodern Pain

Marvel’s new space adventure is here to remind us of what the MCU used to be, with clear conflict and competent villains and no political preaching. · A. D. Sheehan
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Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
Crew manifest Faith statement FAQs
All author resources Lorehaven Guild Subscribe for free

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Lorehaven is reaching Christian fans, homeschool families, church influencers, and cultural conservatives.

Thirty Questions for Critics of ‘The Chosen’ or Other Christian Creators Who Hire Heathens

Yes, we must judge any creative work with righteous judgment, but don’t strain at gnats while swallowing camels. · E. Stephen Burnett

Shazam Sequel Can’t Appease The Fans’ Fury

More fans want superhero stories to act their age, connect with a larger world, and respect metahuman virtues. · E. Stephen Burnett

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Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
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/ Magazines / Spring 2018

‘The Magic Is Real’

James L. Rubart’s stories explore a Christian’s fantastic and redeemed identity in Jesus.
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Novelist James L. Rubart believes your favorite stories reveal the kind of person you are.

For example, his favorite three films are The Matrix, The Shawshank Redemption, and It’s A Wonderful Life. Each story follows a hero who finds his true identity in a surprising way. Rubart says this theme keeps recurring in his novels, including The Long Journey to Jake Palmer (2016) and his newest release, The Man He Never Was (February 2018).

Rubart says his new story explores a man who will “go into the darkest part of his soul and face that and ultimately find victory over it, in a way that he could never imagine.”

As a child, he found his own identity formed by fantasy stories that reflect biblical truth, including, of course, C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series.

“I was just taken away to this world,” Rubart says. “At the point in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Aslan says, You’re going to have to get to know me in your world by a different name . . . my little tiny eleven-year-old brain thought, ‘Is he talking about Jesus? Is he Jesus? That’s the coolest thing in the world.’

“That was the moment when I thought: someday I’ve got to try to do for others what Lewis did for me,” he says. “I was captured by the idea of story.”

Rubart says he didn’t originally intend to write fantasy genre fiction. In fact, rather than story-telling about humans drawn from reality into fantasy worlds, he prefers crafting fictional heroes who experience God’s miraculous twists in their realities.

“I’ve had some experiences where I realize the magic is real,” Rubart says. “And by that I mean: we read all these supernatural, fantastical things happening in the Bible.”

“The magic is real . . . all these supernatural, fantastical things happening in the Bible.”

— James L. Rubart

Christians may believe these stories are true, but don’t imagine how they affect our real lives. Rubart asks: if these stories really happened—if God has supernaturally authored a gospel of miracles in human history—how should we see ourselves and our world?

“I’m fascinated by the idea that we are absolutely spiritual beings having a human experience, and not the other way around,” Rubart says.

Biblical teaching often inspires Rubart’s novels, such as a sermon by the Rev. Tim Keller about Romans 7. In that chapter, the apostle Paul explores how Christians have “died” to sin but still struggle to follow our new, spiritually alive nature in Jesus.

Rubart says he realized Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde also explores Romans 7. But because Stevenson seems to let the dark side win, Rubart says, his new novel adapts the tale with a modern and more redemptive theme—one he believes reflects the biblical truth of the Christian’s new nature.

“We have this trope or this story that we use in the church . . . that there’s a white dog and a dark dog, and whichever you feed more is going to win,” he says. “That story is not true if you’re a Christian. . . . We have been crucified with Christ [Galatians 2:20].”

So instead of lamenting our struggle, Rubart says, we are called to read our own “label”—saved, made new by Jesus—and join our Savior on the adventures he sends us.

Rubart says he’s planning several new fantasy adventures of his own.

Along with helping start the Rubart Writing Academy for aspiring authors, he’s trying stories with more overtly fantastical themes. For example, fans can watch for a new series of time-travel novellas and audiobooks from Rubart and two coauthors. That series will star Rembrandt Stone, a detective recruited to solve cold cases in history.

But although we need history and nonfiction truths for our minds, Rubart says, it’s stories and imagination that stick in our memories and excite our hearts.

“As people who follow Christ, he’s probably a pretty good model to follow. And that’s the way he taught: with fiction.”

— James L. Rubart

“We do not remember three-point sermons, as wonderful as they might be; we remember stories,” Rubart says. “As people who follow Christ, he’s probably a pretty good model to follow. And that’s the way he taught: with fiction.”

We may also find that fiction lasts as long as Christ’s people live, he says.

“We’re going to have this wedding feast, right?” Rubart says, referring to Jesus’s future marriage supper referred to in Revelation 19:6–9. “Are there going to be any stories told around the wedding feast? Well, somebody’s got to write those stories.”

Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
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Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
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Lorehaven helps fans of all ages explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Find the newest fiction for young readers plus teens+YA and adults. Get articles and podcasts that engage the best Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond. Subscribe free to join the Lorehaven Guild for monthly book quests!
Website · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter