Prophet

Helen Macdonald · Sin Blaché

Aug 2023 · Grove Press

About this eBook

NOSTALGIA HAS NEVER BEEN MORE DEADLY

“A crackling, shape-shifting romp with big ideas and a bigger heart . . . A delight.” —C Pam Zhang

From the extraordinary minds of award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author of H Is for Hawk Helen Macdonald and first time author Sin Blaché, Prophet is their electric debut, a tantalizing adventure fusing noir, sci-fi and a slow burn queer romance—set in a universe just one perilous step from our own.

Adam Rubenstein and Sunil Rao have been reluctant partners since their Uzbekistan days. Adam is a seemingly unflappable American Intelligence officer and Rao is an ex-MI6 agent, an addict and rudderless pleasure hound, with the uncanny ability to discern the truth of things—about everyone and everything other than Adam. When an American diner turns up in a foggy field in the UK after a mysterious death, Adam and Rao are called in to investigate, setting into motion the most dangerous and otherworldly mission of their lives.

In a surreal, action-packed quest that takes Adam and Rao from secret laboratories in Colorado, to a luxury lodge in Aspen, to the remote Nevada desert, the pair begins to uncover how and why people’s fondest memories are being weaponized against them by a spooky, ever-shifting substance called Prophet. As the unlikely twosome battles this strange new reality, Prophet’s victims’ memories are materializing in increasingly bizarre forms: favorite games, beloved pets, fairground rides, each more malevolent than the next. Prophet is like no enemy Adam and Rao - or the world - have ever come up against.

A tension-shot odd-couple romance, an unflinching send-up of corporate corruption, and a genre-bending tour de force, Prophet is a triumph of storytelling by a new writing duo with a thrilling future.

Ratings and reviews

Rao knows the truth about everything, except his Slightly-Shorter-But-Still-Hot Murder Hornet Handler Adam. Rao has been...in prison? or a mental health institution? but he has to come back and work for MI6 and the US Air Force (lol) to figure out the Truth behind a bunch of stuff that mysteriously appeared on an air force base in England. Rao and Adam are literally unstoppable. They're inexplicably Special. And the use of Prophet against citizens, and it's changing properties and mysterious nature just never get figured out. I'd love know anything at the end of this book. but I guess the whole point of the book is to have these milquetoast boys fall in milquetoast love...? The shifts in the narrative are either glacially slow or meteoric fast, long stretches of "maybe I'll get an explanation" turn into catastrophic World Destroying Events that just kinda...peter out. There isn't a lot of character development, although Rao is entertaining enough to get us through the book.

About the author

Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, and naturalist. They are the author of the bestselling H Is for Hawk and Vesper Flights along with Shaler’s Fish, a history of falconry, and two other books of poetry. They've written and presented award-winning TV documentaries for PBS and the BBC. Prophet is their first novel.

Sin Blaché is an author and musician. They have been writing horror and sci-fi stories all their life. Prophet is their first novel. Born in California, they live in the North West of Ireland and can be found obsessing over obscure folk instruments, being an ambivalent savior to feral cats, and playing too many video games.