Fury by Rachel Vincent – Book Three of the Menagerie Series

★★★★★

A thrilling, intricately woven dark fantasy set in an alternate reality

1986: It is a world in which humans live alongside cryptids, aka werewolves, sirens, dryads, oracles, faes, minotaurs, and other mythical creatures. One night, 14-year-old human Rebecca Essig returns home from a slumber party to a horrifying double murder. Her family’s tragedy is part of a nationwide child massacre known as ‘the reaping’, instigated by children called ‘surrogates’: changelings with the ability to force humans into committing terrible crimes against each other. One of the few survivors of the reaping, Rebecca struggles to understand why it happened as she grows up in its shadow, and is compelled to discover what became of her lost, replaced sibling.

Present-day: In the years since the reaping, much has changed. Blamed for the child massacre, cryptids have been rounded up and held in captivity: forced to perform in carnivals; tortured and experimented upon; used as slaves, gladiators and hunters’ prey. However, Delilah, a human woman inhabited with the spirit of a Fury, has escaped and, in doing so, has freed other cryptids back into the world. Pregnant, in hiding with her cryptid friends, and increasingly unable to control the Fury’s violent urges, Delilah discovers that humans are once again committing terrible crimes reminiscent of the reaping. As the crime wave closes in around her, she realises the Fury’s rage may have a purpose she never imagined …

Although Fury is the third in a series (the first two novels being Menagerie and Spectacle), it can easily be read as a standalone novel. Instantly plunging the reader into Rebecca’s personal tragedy, the author deftly alternates between the appalling events and aftermath of the reaping and Delilah’s first-person account, gradually unveiling, layer by layer, the nightmarish backstory of the cryptids. As the strands of the two separate stories are skilfully drawn together and woven into a cohesive whole, Fury becomes a real page-turner that grips the reader from the very first revelation of the reaping and never lets up.

The often brutal violence may be off-putting to some, but it is fascinatingly and accurately reflective of the dark nature of many mythological stories – involving revenge, bloodlust, sacrifice – and of the Furies themselves, who mete out vengeful and gruesome punishment. Intertwined with these ancient forms of violence, the ever-present horrors of persecution, prejudice, scapegoating, and fear of the ‘other’ permeate the novel as overarching themes in the dehumanisation (for lack of a better word) of the cryptids, lending the story a powerful topicality in today’s world. All this being said, however, there are also glimmers of hope throughout the novel and, towards the end, a definitive light amidst all the darkness. Highly recommended reading.

Jo-Anne Blanco (as Arwen Evenstar) for Breakaway Reviewers
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
©Jo-Anne Blanco 2018