Matthew Peters

After The Ignoble Lie was published, I expected a certain amount of backlash. It presents views that challenge the Judeo-Christian orthodoxy that's been at the heart of western civilization for millennia. Interestingly, opposition to the religious elements has been practically non-existent. Instead, one of the characters has come under criticism from more than one reviewer.  

 

Now when a female protagonist like Zady Jones—a brilliant, brave, emotionally complex woman navigating the perilous intersections of political intrigue, religious dogma, and personal trauma—is called "too masculine," it begs the question: what exactly do we expect from our heroines?

 

It's a critique I've seen crop up in a handful of Goodreads reviews. Zady is strong-willed, fiercely independent, analytical under pressure, and willing to take physical and moral risks. She doesn't defer. She doesn't apologize for taking up space. For some, those qualities seem to signal "masculine." But to me, they signal "human."

 

This critique isn't just about one character. It's about a broader, deeply ingrained discomfort with female characters who refuse to stay in the boxes traditionally reserved for them. For centuries, women in fiction were relegated to roles of nurturer, seductress, or sidekick. When women step outside those templates—when authors write women who are leaders, strategists, survivors, or warriors—they're often met with this vague accusation of being "too masculine," as if strength, courage, or emotional restraint can't belong to women. I imagine many women—and men—who write fantasy, which often depicts strong female characters, might encounter this criticism often. 

 

But why should gender define character traits? When a male protagonist is emotionally guarded or takes decisive action under threat, we call him compelling, layered, or gritty. When a woman does it, she's "hard to relate to." If she's assertive, she's "abrasive." If she fights, she's "aggressive." These double standards are not only outdated—they're artistically limiting.

 

Zady Jones was never written to conform to gender norms. She was written to live. She bleeds, she grieves, she wrestles with guilt, with love, with loss. She's not fearless—she's afraid, and still she acts. Her resilience isn't borrowed from masculinity; it's born of experience. It's shaped by what she's survived and what she still hopes to protect. That doesn't make her less feminine. It makes her real.

 

If anything, Zady embodies a broader vision of femininity—one that is expansive rather than confined. She contains multitudes. She can be loyal and stubborn, intuitive and skeptical, vulnerable and unyielding. She's allowed to be all these things because women are all these things, something my wife teaches me every day, by her words and by her deeds.

 

Criticism is part of being a writer. I welcome it. I listen. And I reflect on what it reveals—not just about the character, but about the cultural lens we bring to storytelling. When readers say Zady feels too masculine, I don't hear an insult. I hear a challenge: to keep writing women who are unapologetically themselves, regardless of how easily they fit into familiar molds.

 

Zady Jones is not a man in disguise. She's a woman defined on her own terms. And if that makes some readers uncomfortable, maybe it's time we asked why.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

Best,

Matthew

Political-religious (pol-rel) thrillers are a fascinating genre. They blend the intrigue of secret histories, hidden agenda, ancient texts, and power struggles to create stories that if written effectively, captivate readers. But for these stories to truly grip audiences, they must rest on a foundation of historical plausibility. They don't necessarily have to be true, but they could be true. And the more these stories could be true the more they seem to fascinate us.

 

Historical plausibility doesn't mean the story has to stick rigidly to historical fact or avoid imaginative leaps. Rather, it means that the events, characters, and settings are anchored in a world that could have been or at least feels like it could have been. What this entails as an author is a tremendous amount of research into various aspects of the story you're trying to tell. Without solid grounding in history, religion, and politics, the narrative risks becoming either absurd, or, worse, disrespectful to the real-life histories and traditions it touches.

 

Take, for example, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. While the book plays fast and loose with many historical facts, it is deeply steeped in real art, architecture, religious history and longstanding cultural legends—perhaps the most interesting of which is the Merovingian Dynasty, which, some allege, included the bloodline of Jesus. In his novel, Brown creates a framework that feels plausible even if his plot twists leap into the realm of fantasy. Readers are hooked because they can almost believe there could be hidden codes in Da Vinci's paintings (after all, the guy was a genius polymath!), or secret bloodlines of Jesus hidden by shadowy groups. The story's success and its global appeal depend on a delicate balance between imagination and historical grounding.

 

I employ a similar method in The Ignoble Lie. Without giving anything away, the novel delves deep into ancient history and looks at the creation of monotheism and explores a way through which such a belief might've come into existence. The belief in one God, of course, fostered the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with huge implications for the world. Certain narratives have grown up surrounding the origins of these faiths and have been codified in mainstream religion. Whether such narratives are true in a historical sense, however, is a different matter…

   

With regard to political and religious issues, the term "conspiracy theory" is often tossed around (usually with a pejorative connotation), whenever people mention ideas outside the mainstream. Some people feel conspiracy theories only belong in novels and movies or should be applied to the beliefs of those who aren't exactly "playing with a full deck." But in some cases, the term "conspiracy theory" should be replaced by the term "alternative theory." Except for the most outlandish notions, alternative theories provide competing explanations for why something is the way it is, explanations that aren't accepted by most people. These exist along a continuum that ranges from the fanciful on one end, to the plausible on the other. My belief is that pol-rel thrillers that fall on the latter end of the spectrum are inherently more interesting than those that are more fanciful in nature. The drawback, from the author's perspective, and the reader's, is that it takes a good deal of time and energy to construct such a plausible novel.

 

But historical plausibility also matters because it respects the intelligence of the reader. Thriller readers are often sharp, curious, and eager to engage not just with the plot but with the world the author presents. Such readers don't suffer fools gladly, and inaccuracies are not well tolerated, nor should they be. Moreover, pol-rel thrillers often tap into real anxieties and fascinations: the relationship between faith and power, the corruptibility of religious institutions, or the tension between personal belief and public policy. In the U.S. the question of what role religion should play in public policy is always front and center. These are weighty themes, and when handled with historical care, they give the novel greater depth and resonance. A well-researched backdrop makes the stakes feel real and the ethical dilemmas more compelling.

 

In short, for pol-rel thrillers to succeed, historical plausibility isn't just a bonus—it's crucial. It's the bridge between imagination and believability, allowing readers to lose themselves in the story while feeling the weight of the past pressing against the present.

 

At the end of the day, I believe in writing (and reading) books that reflect on the real world and the issues that confront our society. We live in tumultuous times, times that often feel like things are happening outside our control. Our minds are the one thing we do have control over. Engaging our minds, exposing ourselves to different perspectives, keeps us growing as people, and leads to tolerance and greater acceptance of others. And in this day and age, I think we desperately need that.

        

I'm eager to hear your thoughts.

 

Until next time,

Matthew