I loved the first Menagerie book. The idea of a traveling cirucs full of creatures like werewolves, minotaurs, oracles... poor creatures enslaved because of man fearing them for somethng that happened long ago, called the reaping... and seeing how these creatures managed to reclaim their lives for themselves after years of abuse... I loved it. the second one was also good, but for me not as good as the first one, and I was expecting the third one, which isn't bad, but to me it was a tad confussing. Let's begin.

We find two different time lines in this book: one that covers the reaping, following one survivor; and then the time line with Delilah, Gallaguer and all the gang that managed to stay together after the second book. I loved the alternating time lines, and I have to confess I loved the one from the reaping time line, but then it began to get confussing for me with the 3 different changelings that appear. I can't say much more without being spoiler-y (we already had been told that the ones who did the killing on the Reaping were changelings), but for me it began to be difficult to follow the relationships in actual time following those 3 changelings.

The characters are the same ones we have come to love on the previous books, plus the ones from the previous time line, which are also well developed and rounded, even though the chanelings for me remained a work in progress in the sense that they would have benefited of a more "personal" story, knowing their reasons as a collective and the whys... which I think this book failed to deliver, at least for me.

the ending, while conclusive in some aspects also left other things hanging, and I'm wondering if we are going to have more Menagerie books, even if they are spin-offs, to follow the characters that didn't end the book with all their problems solved (I would love that, to be honest).

All in all it was an entertaining read, but for me the best one of the three books is still the first one. Plot wise, characters and story were by far more compelling than the following ones, which to me ended up diluting the essence of the story.

Well, I'm definitely CONFLICTED. Vincent wrote a dark, complex and intricate world that is mind blowing, highlighting the deepest failings and depravities of humanity. In this tale, you are utterly engulfed by the characters plight with the hopes that some recompenses are provided for the tragedies that these characters had to endure. I, for one, loved and hated the conclusion. Loved it, because Vincent excels at ripping your emotions to their breaking point. But in the end, it was such a bitter sweet sorrow (this is where I leave out any possibilities of a spoiler)... and that is not what I want to invest three books worth of my reading time into only to have it end like that. That in a nutshell is my conflicted feeling on Fury and the entire Menagerie series. 5 stars, even though it might not be for me, it truly is a masterpiece of writing and imagination.

I received this ARC copy of Fury from MIRA - HarperCollins. This is my honest and voluntary review. Fury is set for publication October 30, 2018.

Rating: 5 stars
Written by: Rachel Vincent
Series: The Menagerie Series
Publication Date: Book 3
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: October 30, 2018
ISBN-10: 0778307654
ISBN-13: 978-0778307655
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fury-Menagerie...
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fury...

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I really enjoyed this series and this started off really great, but i was really disappointed with the ending. It was building up to this great revelation and then was just entirely rushed. Especially if this is the last in the series, the author could have stretched it out into another book no problem and expanded on a lot of the ends left loose and hanging at the finish.

I find that the premise of these three books is really interesting and also kind of novel - at least I have not seen this kind of cryptid-thing before. Vincent has always written in a really engaging way, so I cannot remember a time when I have gotten bored while reading any of her books.
However, some of the writing came off as cringy, especially when she tried to add weight to a situation. "Rebecca could see anger shining in his eyes. Or maybe it was... fear." Cringey and unnatural. Game show hosts speak like this.
I also did not fully understand how the three babies were exchanged and why exactly did they have different ages. I read these parts several times, slowly, like reaaaaally slowly... still didn't get it.
+ the ending. It was not a proper ending. First of all... Delilah did not kill all the cryptids, just some... and then kind of decided to die (like Beth in "Little Women"). We did not see what happened to the world afterwards... did she change something? Was the sacrifice worth it? Nothing. So she went out, really anticlimatically, did something with no high stakes, and went home and died. That's a proper ending to a three-book series with really high stakes? Nothing about Zyanya or Lenore gets solved as well (as one would hope/think from the synopsis).
So, overall... decent writing mostly in terms of fluency, the world and concept itself is brilliant, but there were some problems with the plot.

Beautiful and tragic, funny and disturbing, this book is the perfect conclusion to the Menagerie trilogy. Rachel Vincent has once again delivered her unique and exceptional brand of fantasy with no holds barred.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid for this review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book!

I had NO idea a while back when I requested this that this was book three in a series I hadn't read. In order to be able to give this a proper and fair review, I then devoured books one and two and fell in love with a completely unconventional story. This series wasn't like anything I'd read before; feeling part YA/NA, part Urban Fantasy, part plain old fantasy but just wholly good. There wasn't a second that any of the unusualness threw me off or that I didn't like.

The characters are entirely what makes this book. I dare you to read them without falling for Gallagher, Eryx, Rommily and every other fleshed out and well drawn character. It is a really satisfying feeling to get through a book and love everyone!

If you're waiting until October for the new book, I wish you luck and know you'll love it. If you haven't read the series, then what are you waiting for? Go for it!

I loved the world of this story, I felt drawn into it straight away. I would definitely recommend reading this book its was really exciting.

I randomly browsed my way into reading the first part of this series shortly after I discovered Netgalley and I was hooked! I love the world building that Rachel Vincent does and I loved the peek into the past that we were able to get in the third book. My only qualm was that it felt like the conclusion of the book happened quite quickly right there at the end. I was so crushed that Delilah had to make such a sacrifice to fulfill her purpose. So sad that this series is over!

This conclusion is simply stunning in its complexity as it winds through time giving readers the answers that have always alluded them. If the first book Menagerie was breathtaking in all its amazing nuances then certainly the second book Spectacle was harrowing as the author explored just how evil humanity can be. Now it’s back to the beginning in many ways as the terrible Reaping of 1986 flits through this story as we catch up with Delilah and her friends who have become family.
Having finished this trilogy I’m left feeling both uplifted and yet strangely bereft. No longer will I cringe at the protective and oh so bloodthirsty Gallagher whose heart is clearly bigger than a mountain. I won’t be sat on the edge of my seat as the cruelly maligned cryptids yet again are forced to be base entertainment and all the while I’m quietly crying inside for these wonderful and noble characters. This journey had to stop somewhere and it’s fitting somehow that as somethings have to end there’s the hope of a new beginning. This book made me FEEL and whilst I’m usually primarily a romance reader Delilah is a character that shines oh so brightly. I leave you with no spoilers but I do hope you will undertake this journey with Delilah and perhaps you too will start to realise that somethings are simply fated .
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

I got a copy of this book from Edelweiss to review. This is the third and final book in the Menagerie series by Vincent. I enjoyed it a lot. The story moves quickly and this was an easy read for me.

Delilah is anticipating the arrival of her new child and is in hiding with the other cryptids that escaped captivity in the last book. She is trying to help her friends tie up loose ends when another mystery rears its ugly head. For some reason she is being drawn to men who all look the same and for some reason her fury-side wants to brutally murder these men. Delilah is hoping that solving this mystery will help her to unravel the secrets of her past.

This story bounces back and forth between two different stories. One story is current day with Delilah. The other story is set in the 1980’s and follows a character named Rebecca who survives the Reaping that leaves the rest of her family dead and/or imprisoned. The two storylines end up converging in an interesting and unexpected way.

This story was impossible for me to put down. I was drawn to both stories (current day and 1980’s period one) and absolutely dying to know what would happen next. The ending was very emotional and left me reeling….I am still not sure how I felt about it.

Overall this was a wonderful series as a whole and I enjoyed this conclusion to it alot. I would recommend if you like gritty urban fantasy reads that have intriguing characters and lots of interesting mythological monsters. I am glad I read the series and would recommend.

This is yet another book I’ve innocently dived into, unaware it was part of a series. “Series” can mean a number of things, from stand-alone complete-in-themselves novels set in the same universe to one long story that extends over several volumes. Recently I listened to an interview with Peter Jackson in which he discussed the decision to not put a recap at the beginning of The Two Towers, the second part of The Lord of the Rings. He felt that one year between film was a short enough time for viewers (those few not intimately familiar with the books) to remember and anyone who went to see it without having seen or read The Fellowship of the Ring, oh well… I admit to not being as careful as I might about checking to see if a book is a sequel, so I rely on the skill of the author to furnish necessary backstory without inundating me with it, and to draw me into the story so that even if I have to work a little harder to figure out what has gone before, I’m already hooked.

Rachel Vincent’s Fury definitely falls into this category. For the first couple of chapters I vacillated between “this is a sequel and I can’t keep straight who and what all these characters are” to “this is a stand-alone that brilliantly weaves the backstory into the present, trusting the reader to gradually put it all together.”

The book begins with parallel stories from the past and present. In the past, we learn of a mysterious rash of murders that leave one child survivor, always a six-year-old. In the present, a small band of cryptids (werewolves, redcaps, oracles, a minotaur, and the like), having escaped a brutal captivity, struggle to maintain their freedom while tracking down their abusers. Their journeys kept me reading on, dying of curiosity about how the two story lines would come together, and I was quickly so in love with these characters that discovering there were not one but two previous novels filled me not with disappointment but anticipation. There’s lots more, even if I read them in the wrong order. You, on the other hand, can reap the benefit of my experience and start at the beginning.

In some ways, this book made me think of the flip side of Seanan McGuire’s “Incryptid” series, which I like very much and have reviewed elsewhere. In McGuire’s world, as Vincent’s, these nonhuman people are at tremendous risk from the mundane world, only there is an extended family devoted to their protection and preservation. While it’s a terrible shame such heroes do not exist in the world of Fury, here the cryptids are their own saviors, which makes for a different but no less satisfying tale.

The usual disclaimer: I received an advance reading copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything in particular about it

It has been some time since the ending of a book took me completely by surprise, but this one blew me right out of the water.

Fury marks the conclusion of the Menagerie series by Rachel Vincent. It's an extraordinary series - just a step ahead of real world events with many of the issues it tackled, and though it may have lacked subtlety in some of its allegories, it's a message some people do seem to need hammered home. The characters were always so well drawn and this book makes no exception - the various cryptids are never just people plus fangs/fur/sparkles but instead managed to think in completely alien ways while building a sense of family and home for the reader and the protagonist. A delicate balance, one that puts the writing skills of Rachel Vincent on full display.


Here be spoilers, not mild spoilers but story ruiners, so please don't continue if you haven't read the book!


The finale though - I understand the sacrifice made and the peace it restored, but after the complete loss of self and control Delilah experienced, I wanted so, so, badly for her to have a chance at family and raising her daughter without having to hide. I am gutted right now, and part of it is because it feels unnecessary- damnit people, the world is brutal enough without making up new ways to rip out the hearts of loyal readers! But genuinely, the fact that its destroyed me this much speaks to the strength of the character Delilah had become over the series. I'm sad to leave them behind, but glad they were part of my life for a while.

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Fury by Rachel Vincent


I read Spectacle and enjoyed it, this is the follow up. The stage was set with Spectacle and I would recommend reading it prior to this book as the back story is really important. Delilah, Gallagher and the others continue their journey in this book. The story is more in the moment and less philosophical than Spectacle.

Gallagher and Delilah are on the run as are all cryptids. There is an outside influence that is loosely, vaguely and briefly alluded to that may be the cause of all of the aberrant problems. It is never made clear if “others” are who set the stage for the mass murders that are blamed on the cryptids.

The relationship of Gallagher and Delilah is given greater attention in this book. The other cryptids are more of a supporting cast. The confrontation with the surrogates leads to the conclusion of the book.

I enjoyed the work and recommend it.

A fantastic continuation/conclusion of a story that will delve you into a world of beautiful imagination. Rachel did a great job with these characters and story. I’m not sure it could have been any better! This story will spark something wonderful in you and leave you wanting to escape to their world. Read the first two books first, but definitely read all three.

I loved how the blurb sounded so I requested Fury not realizing it was the third book in a trilogy until I started reading it. However,that didn't take away from my overall enjoyment of the story in fact I was surprised at how easily I was able to follow along and how emotionally invested I was in these characters. I didn't expect to be that affected by it because I hadn't read the previous books but I was, I so was and still am, my heart aches over some of the things that went down in this book. I wish some things hadn't gone down the way they had but I enjoyed it nonetheless and look forward to going back to the beginning.

#Edelweiss #RachelVincent #Fury
Fury has all the intensity of the other two books. The author creates a beautifully, intense final book to a wonderful series.

"Wow. So you're, like, humankind's sword and shield?"
"Something like that. Only honestly, right now I feel like I'm staring down an army, wielding nothing but a plastic spork."

This book is different from the previous two books as it focuses on two main characters across two different periods of time.
Fury continues to follow Delilah and her cryptid friends in their journey to find the friends and family they have been separated from by America's anti-cryptid laws. However, for the first time we also get to see what the Reaping was like for those who experienced it in 1986 through the perspective of Rebecca Essig, whose sister turns out to be one of the surrogates who were placed amongst humankind to control them.

After the events of Spectacle, Delilah is now hugely pregnant, and people are more on edge about cryptids than ever due to their breakout from the Savage Spectacle. Combine this with the furiae's unexplained and unnerving execution of several men who have wandered too close to their cabin, plus Gallagher attempting to reconcile his vow to protect Delilah above all others with the fact that she's carrying his child, and the whole group is very much on edge. Interspersed with Rebecca's experiences of the Reaping and the years afterwards, Fury steadily leads us to see how the two sequences are related; culminating in Delilah's ultimate realisation of the role she has to play, as well as the impossible decision she must make.

How can she face a future in which her kind will forever be hunted?
Why did the furiae choose her in the first place? 
What can she do when she is forced to choose between her family and the rest of the world?

Vincent does a fantastic job of creating the atmosphere of tension and anxiety which would be sure to permeate any situation such as this, and draws this sensational series to an appropriately dramatic, if heartbreaking, ending.
I only wish there were more Menagerie books to come; it's a world I'm not quite ready to leave just yet.

Published to ABookBoundGirl.wixsite.com/blog on August 12th 2018.
https://abookboundgirl.wixsite.com/blog/single-post/2018/08/12/Fury-by-Rachel-Vincent---Menagerie-Book-3

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.


There has never been a Rachel Vincent book I didn't love and Fury is definitely continues that streak! This is the end of the Menagerie trilogy and it's about to go out with a bang! No one will escape from this story unscathed and I mean that in terms of characters and readers because omg this is the end and Rachel pulls no punches!

Delilah and the rest of her friends who escaped the Spectacle are basically living on the lam in hiding. They are doing everything they can to stay under the radar and just survive. It doesn't help that Delilah is also ten and half months pregnant...and yes, I said ten and half! Poor Delilah doesn't follow a human pregnancy, since she's furiae and her baby daddy, Gallagher is a red cap. What that exactly will mean for her baby has yet to be revealed and likely won't until after her birth--for Delilah refuses to call the baby an "it" and refers to said baby as "her".

What makes this story slightly different from its predecessors is that instead of the multiple points of view, this time it's most Delilah and a third person account of something that happened in 1986. It involves cryptids and a very dark history. As the accounts continue, we slowly, every so slowly, see how it connects to present day.

Delilah and her friends want nothing more than just to live an ordinary life, one without fear and having to constantly look over their shoulders. Delilah wants that more than anything for her unborn child as well. She and her friends also want to rescue those that they have been separated from, starting with Mirela and Lala. In the meantime, Gallagher is searching for the man who made him and Delilah perform for his entertainment and basically led to their having a child together.

This book was sooo emotional for so many reasons. It's the final book of the series and as I mentioned, Rachel pulls no punches. It was gut wrenching to say the least. The friction between humans and cryptids continues to grow more hostile and we will see that is nothing new, based on the flashbacks of the mysterious character we will get to know. This is basically like two stories that slowly form into one.

My one regret from this story was the lack of time for romance between Delilah and Gallagher. They were brought together by forces beyond their control and throughout this series I've been rooting for them. While they have a tentative bond in place already, there was always room for something more. But they had many hills to climb before they could get there. And then that ending...wow, just wow. Rachel, you truly know how to write a book that totally tugs at all one's heartstrings!

The pacing to this one was unique, for awhile we don't really know what's going to happen with our main group. Yes, things happen to them while they try to make their rescue attempt and in the meantime we are seeing things from the past. And it does contain some plot points that make for quite the head twist if you are not paying close attention. And though I was paying as close attention as possible, I'll admit some of the bits of info we learn did throw me through a loop! Though by the end, it all makes sense and it helped to clear up that fogginess I had going!

The ending...this ending was unexpected, yet really not if I think about it. There were clues and hints that led to the epic conclusion, yet I still didn't quite put it all together. And when it happened...yeah. I will say that this ending was right and I really cannot touch upon that anymore than that.

Rachel Vincent has been one of my favorite authors since day 1, way back when I decided to give Stray a go all those years ago. And since then, she has kept me so entranced with whatever world she is writing in! The Menagerie trilogy was no different! It's definitely a series that makes you see society differently, though it's a world of pure fiction, you have to wonder...what would happen if it were true? Could we learn from the mistakes that the previous (fictional) society made or would be doomed to follow the same path! Whoever said fictional stories didn't make you think about real life realistically obviously didn't read many fiction books!

Fury was a heart-racing read from start to finish and I am saddened that the journey is over. But it just makes me more excited for Rachel's next adventure to begin! Hopefully that wait won't be too long!



Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars


Fury releases October 30, 2018

Wow! I requested this title because of the cover, and didn't realise that it was the conclusion of a trilogy.
Luckily, the two books were 99p and I think, 2.99 on amazon, and I happily read the first two (which are very, very enjoyable).
This, the conclusion, is Delilahs ultimate growth as a person and as part of the cryptid group of the menagerie, and is great fun to read. It's lovely to finally see the ship I was hoping for come to fruition, and the climax was heart stopping and tear jerking.
My only criticism would be that there are deaths in the book, and I did not see them coming, nor did I enjoy them, because all I wanted was a HEA!
I will look up her writing again, and have put the author on my to-read list.
Recommended.

Yeah, I really enjoyed reading this book! It gives us answers to questions about what the Reaping was, and those babies that didn't go home and how the two were connected. We also got the story of Rebecca, who was one of only 6 survivors of the reaping. And I loved how her story connected with Delilah, because it answered so, so, so many questions!

This is the book where things come all together. Mysteries are solved, and with Rebecca's story, we also got to see how the world got to be the way it was, from the Reaping to the aftermath with the cryptids and all. Everything came together so well!

Oh, that ending! It was so fantastic, and it hurt! There was a really big cost, and I have in my head a partial comparison, but that would be really spoiler. But sufficit to say that not everybody makes it out, that there is a high price to be paid!

I do still have questions, like what was the purpose of the children, why were they left there, what species of fae where they? I would have loved to have more detail about the prologue of Spectacle, and why we got that specific one instead of something else. I wish we also could see more of the world after the end, how much it changed, because that epilogue didn't give many details!

This book was so fantastic, and I absolutely loved it!