This book was sort of a miss for me. I thought the storyline was interesting, but I just wasn’t as drawn into it as I expected to be. I did like the main character Drew, and I did like the author's writing style. I think there was just a little bit too much going on for me, and I didn’t get the resolutions I wanted for some of the storylines. I may go back and check out the final published work and see if anything changed! I was given an advanced reader's copy via NetGalley, thank you to them. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This was not for me, a little too out there.

This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Well, no. That isn’t quite true, because having read and absolutely adored a previous book by this author, I went into this expecting an extremely well written book that would keep me riveted from beginning to end. And I did get that. But while the previous book I’d read by this author kept me guessing through a murder investigation before delivering answers, Accidental Prophet continuously dropped twists, turns, and wriggly little subplots into my lap before presenting me with only half the answers. I want those answers, so I really hope that this is only the beginning of Drew’s story and that Accidental Prophet becomes the first in a series.
The story is told in several points of view, and in several different timelines, but at no point does the switch become confusing. At first I wanted to skip the paragraphs from the 1960s, where Claudia told her story, but I quickly came to enjoy the perspective of this fiercely determined woman who was driven to succeed in a male dominated society. This is one of those books where you need to be open to knowing all the characters, not just Drew, as every person included in the story is important and linked in some way. It’s like, in 1970 Claudia has the briefest interaction with a random person, and nearly half a century later so does Drew, and we discover that they were sent there for a reason. In fact I love the idea of the Prophets. These people who receive visions that they must “save the child” or go to a certain place, or pass on a message, and they do it while never understanding the bigger picture, but knowing it’s important.
Like I said, the characters are pivotal in driving the plot forward, and one of the most important characters is Victor, a homicidal Russian spy and would-be mass murderer of millions of people, who we first meet as a sexually abused, unloved child. Wow, so I cried for Victor, not just the broken child who was raped by his father and abandoned by his mother. Not just the youth who thought he was being rescued but was instead sent to live in a mindfuck of a Russian training facility. But I also felt for that adult who was so broken by that point that he felt the only way out was to take down the city around him in a blaze of screams and death. Victor absolutely broke my heart, and I loved that the author could make me feel so much for the man who played the part of the novel’s “bad guy”.
This book probably won’t be for everyone. It’s kind of hard to classify just what it is. It’s a bit of a spy thriller, a bit paranormal, a whiff of sci-fi, there’s a gay love interest for Drew, and a good part of the story is told through the diary entries of a trail blazing female journalist in the 1960s. I personally enjoyed the mishmash of genres that made up this book, fingers crossed the author gives us more.

This cover is stunning, the characters and world are stunning and the writing really pulled me in. I don't think I've read a book that pulled me in like this in such a long time.

While it had a slow start, I was happy to still be reading as the pacing and tension picked up. The characters were multidimensional and relatable. I hope there are more books forthcoming, as the end was a bit of a cliffhanger. :)

Reviewed for Queer Sci Fi 7/17/2019

Aliens may walk among us in Bud Gundy’s cleverly imagined, deftly paced sci fi thriller Accidental Prophet, which has echoes of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchersand a Robert Ludlum-style spy novel.

The story opens with thirty-year-old Drew sitting with his grandmother on her deathbed. Since his parents died in a car accident, his grandmother Claudia, once a national news anchor of much notoriety, has become Drew’s emotional haven and closest confidant. Before she dies, she reveals to him a bizarre story with hints of a conspiracy that will destroy the planet.

Claudia dies the next day, but she left Drew her journal which recounts everything he needs to know, along with a jeweled pendant he’s never seen before. Drew is more concerned about his grandmother’s mental status during her final days until he starts having terrifying visions in broad daylight and seems to have developed a rapid healing ability after coming into contact with the pendant.

Some of those visions show him the life story of a Russian spy named Victor, who Claudia had warned him about. Drew is soon deep down a rabbit hole of hidden telepathy and a secret society of never-aging humans who might be connected to a UFO that the U.S. government has been studying out of the public’s eye.

Claudia’s journal entries are interwoven as a first person epistolary that figures equally into the unfolding mystery. There are also chapters detailing Drew’s visions of Victor’s life, taken from Victor’s perspective, which makes for a creative and dynamic approach to storytelling. Though readers who like their stories linear and from a single point-of-view might find the structure distracting.

I felt it broadened the “world” Drew must navigate and added texture. The sections told by Claudia and those focused on Victor’s turbulent childhood engage and activate emotions, which on the flipside leaves Drew’s third person storyline a little flat in contrast. Claudia traverses the 1960s and 1970s with lovely period detail while she fights for her place in a sexist industry and encounters difficult personal choices. Victor is introduced as a ten-year-old boy in the direst of circumstances. His father raped him, his mother is a heroin addict, and he swigs vodka on his way to school with a group of futureless boys in the slums of a minor Russian city. It’s a case of vibrantly-drawn supporting characters working to the detriment of Gundy’s lead man Drew, who doesn’t achieve the same level of fascination.

Setting that quandary aside, there’s a ton to like about Gundy’s series-starter. His background as a TV news producer really shows. I love books that teach me something I didn’t know, and Gundy renders the sociopolitical environment of the late sixties and early seventies with authority, as well as behind the scenes in network news as one might expect.

He also has a sure pulse on how to build interest and suspense. It’s the kind of story in which the reader knows early on things are not what they seem, and the gradual reveal dials up the creepiness and sense of danger.

Accidental Prophet has a romance subplot with Drew meeting an attractive guy named Tom while out at a bar, though the portrayal there is not quite as successful. It’s a tough thing to sneak in when the broader story demands attention elsewhere, thus the will-they-or-won’t-they side drama lacks some feelz.

Overall, Gundy is a skillful storyteller, and this first installment in a planned sci fi series is well worth the read and of special interest to readers who enjoy extraterrestrial thrillers and trips back to the 60s/70s.

Bud Gundy has been on my radar since Somewhere Over Lorain Road which made my Best Of list the year it was published, so when he approached me about his latest book, I happily agreed to read and review it after snagging a copy off Netgalley.

First off, Accidental Prophet is not a romance. There may be some romantic elements (similarly to his first book), but it's not a romance, so if that's what you're looking for, this book possibly isn't for you. It's a Sci-Fi thriller with three primary protagonists, one of whom is gay.

Drew, our current-time protagonist, has recently lost his grandmother, one of the few constants in his life. The late Claudia Trenton, who's the protagonist in the historical portions of this novel, was a rather famous TV News Anchor, who early in her career caught a couple of lucky breaks that propelled her to fame.

The book switches between Drew telling his story about the mysterious visions he has about a apocalyptic incident in the near future that appears to be taking place in downtown San Francisco and Claudia telling her story in a secret memoir she has left for Drew to find.

As we find out more of Claudia's history, the story slowly unravels to explain Drew's visions, the handsome man he sees in those, and the secret of a mysterious medieval prince that plays a huge role in what is about to unfold.

Drew finds out from his grandmother's memoirs that he's a prophet, someone who can foresee the future, and he's going to be tasked with stopping the coming apocalypse.

And then there's the third protagonist, Victor. He's a spy, trained from childhood in Russia to fit in with Americans, trained to integrate himself into the culture that's not his own. Some of his tale was harrowing to read, and I thought that the author quite cleverly made me feel sorry for the character.

I was fascinated by Claudia's story more so than the other two. It's unusual for a woman in the 1960s to make it in the newsroom, and while she catches a few lucky breaks, Claudia is also ruthless in some aspects and finds a way to obtain information by unconventional means. She's also pretty smart and able to draw the right conclusion from the information she obtains.

The eventual conclusion to the three protagonist's stories felt a little rushed, and while many questions are answered, I felt that it was too much at once. But that's my hang-up and might not be yours.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book, and it certainly kept me interested from start to finish. If you like to read outside of the romance genre and are into Sci-Fi, thrillers and mysteries, this would be a good book to try.

I wanted to love this book SO MUCH. LGBTQ+ characters and Sci-Fi, I thought this would be a slam dunk for me. I did like the main character Drew, and the story-line was intriguing. Going back and forth between the decades was a nice touch, and I enjoyed what it added to the story. For me I think it was just the writing style and the pacing that made it so difficult to get through. There was a lot going on, and at times I felt like we as an audience didn’t see a resolution of certain plots. I felt like I was left hanging, and because there was so much going on some of it felt rushed, I think. I did enjoy it overall, and I would be interested in reading this author again.

I was given an advanced reader's copy via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

First of all, I just want you to know that Somewhere Over Lorain Road by the author belongs to one of my all time favorite books. And even if Accidental Prophet didn't meet my VERY HIGH EXPECTATION ,Bud Gundy will stay on my radar. Because I like his writing style.

Secondly, Accidental Prophet doesn't belong to my favorite genre, though it is difficult to determine a genre of this book. Paranormal? Historical? Romance? Fantasy? Memoir? I think the author himself wasn't sure about it. And it was my MAIN problem of this book. There is SO MUCH going on, too many loose threads, too many events to focus on, difficult to follow and...to enjoy, a lot of illogical events/situations, and many things happen that make no sense.

It was a struggle, but I didn't give up on the author. I just consider this one "NOT MY BOOK".

While Accidental Prophet is more Sci-Fi than romance, the story is interesting and unlike anything else I've come across. The story has a strong start, but wanes some at times, especially as it moves back and forth between past and present. Speaking of past and present, we get a book inside a book here as we get Claudia's story from the past while also getting the here and now with Drew. With so much going on, I would've expected more questions to be answered, more explanation of some things, but I feel like some pretty important topics weren't explained at all while others were done to death. That's my biggest complaint with this one. There was just too much happening and then we have the rush to get things tied up in a neat little bow for the conclusion. Sorry to say that not everything made it into that bow - a few strands were left hanging. I don't read a lot of Sci-Fi, so maybe it's just me, or maybe I missed it, but I had questions about how some things happened or why they happened and I didn't get the answers. I'm not one who needs to be spoon-fed, but with this one, I feel like I needed some of that.

This is a sci-fi thriller with a side of romance featuring a gay protagonist. But Drew is grieving over his grandmother’s death and though he meets a man, their relationship takes a backseat to the story.
There are three stories - Drew’s, his grandmother Claudia, and a Russian spy named Victor. I found Claudia’s story to be the most enjoyable as it explores the life of a career woman in the 60s. Victor’s story is intriguing too, from his broken childhood in Tolyatti to his mission in San Francisco. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like I got to know Drew. He went through a lot, including seeing visions of a disaster, but his character doesn’t seem to grow. The people he meets act like plot devices than real characters. The plot involves a secret society, people with powers, dangerous technology and trying to link them all made for a confusing read. I was left with many questions at the abrupt ending, which makes me think there’ll be a sequel. If there is, I hope it will give Drew a chance to shine.

The basic premise of the storyline was very interesting and I did like Drew, the MC, and while I should have been drawn into the story I wasn't. I don't know why but I just could't immerse myself in the story. It wasn't a bad story, it just missed the mark a bit. I might revisit it again at a later date and try again, all in all it was an okay story.

The Accidental Prophet by Bud Gundy has a good set up, but unfortunately, the ending for the setup didn’t live up to its possibilities. I really wanted to like the book and I did enjoy the central character, but at times the book seems to lose its focus.

The basic premise of the book is that Drew Morton loses his grandmother, and Drew’s grandmother tells him on her deathbed that she’s written her autobiography. After retrieving the autobiography, Drew learns a lot about his grandmother’s career and some supernatural facts about himself...he’s a profit.

The problem with the book is that it tries or be too many things at once, and ends up failing in the end because everything gets rushed at the climax of the book. I really liked the idea, and I enjoyed the book, but I just felt the story was getting its training wheels off when the author felt the need to rush the conclusion. I also found the ultimate tying together of many, many loose threads from his grandmother’s autobiography to aid in the outcome of the book almost a bit much.

As a whole, it’s an enjoyable read. I’m grateful to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this book before publication. As always, my reviews are mine and are not influenced by the author or publisher.

This is more a paranormal mystery than a romance though I suppose there is technically a relationship. It was well-written thought it did seem to drag at times. I'm not entirely sure why but in general this book just didn't "do it" for me. It was interesting, but I wasn't interested if that makes sense. Maybe if I was expecting more mystery/thriller instead of a romance it would have fared better, but I'm not sure.