Never Saw It Coming by Mike Jordan is a sci-fi action book available on amazon kindle. I was asked to review this book by the author in exchange for them reviewing my book.

Never Saw It Coming synopsis from Amazon

Everyone knows someone like Tim Finnegan. Just a guy, barely scraping by. Someone with too much squandered potential. Someone with not enough of anything, aside from anger and resignation. He works too hard for too little, and would prefer to be left alone. He lives a seemingly joyless existence. It’s much worse for him, because he knows what he had, and exactly how he lost it all. Things get worse, however when a band of miscreants known to the media as the Jackson Five decide to rob a bank as he’s walking out, two weeks worth of not-enough in his back pocket.

They discover trying to rob a man like Tim Finnegan was a mistake. Tim discovers getting shot in the face really ruins the week.

Things get worse for Tim when he awakes two days later, his bullet wound completely healed, and plagued by precognitive visions. Common wisdom dictates that people fear what they don’t understand, and it’s safe to say Tim Finnegan scares the hell out of himself.

Unfortunately for him, he scares the hell out of a lot of other people as well. In short order he finds himself running from the Law, the scumbags that shot him, a group of whack-jobs calling themselves the Disciples of Nero, who want nothing more than to watch the world burn. The Reverend Father Jonathan Blake, however, believes that Tim may be the Second-Coming, or the Anti-Christ.

Then, and only then, does Tim forge his own path. Only one thing is certain: They never saw it coming.

My opinion

I really enjoyed this book and found the fast pace and well thought through progression of it was amazing. The main character was very likable and his devotion to the female he loved was incredibly endearing. I also totally loved the way the last page ends.

Plot wise I was hooked from right at the start and it didn’t let go until the very last word. It reminded me a lot of Dean Koontz and as he is one of my favourite authors that’s no bad thing at all.

Based on plot and characters alone I want to give this book 5 stars. I really was very impressed by it, however, I am afraid I can’t.

There were a few minor things for me that took the edge off what would have otherwise been a perfect book. Firstly I got very lost knowing where the characters were all the time. They seemed to travel a lot but always seemed to be in the same town. For someone running from the cops this seemed a little odd and had me very confused at a few points.

Secondly I found there were a few too many grammar and spelling mistakes in it for me. I’m quite sensative to those, however, so don’t expect that to put everyone off. I’ve definitely seen a similar amount in more traditionaly published books.

Thirdly as a Christian I found the few anti-christian references a little annoying. At one point the book very firmly suggests that Tim is just another incarnation of Jesus Christ and for me that was taking the anti-christian a little too far. I know almost all sci-fi in nature does not lend itself to being very Christian but this one went a little too far. So I’d recommend this book more for non-Christians.

That leaves me giving this book 4 out of 5 stars.

 

Disclaimer: I was in no way paid for this review or otherwise persuaded to give a favourable book review, this is entirely my own opinion.