In her debut novel, Kate Lowe, has created a story over-ripe with toxic female relationships. The book opens with a dead student, posed on a swing, but without an obvious cause of death. From there, an adult Violet narrates and tries to piece together her memories of the year she spent at a girls’ boarding school on the outskirts of a small, downtrodden seaside town. Violet, herself, is a survivor of a car accident that kills her father and her younger sister, leaving her with undiagnosed and untreated PTSD and survivor’s guilt. The suspense gradually builds in an atmosphere filled with sensual and sexual undertones ensconced in a sense of foreboding. The sense of menace builds gradually. Four girls and their teacher—misfits all—study the myths and history of women’s rage—from Medusa forward—until these ideas intersect with and distort reality. "It seems that women are doomed to two fates. It is our lot to either be seen as unpredictable and irrational mortals, maligned and repressed by the actions of men; or sacred beings, goddesses of higher realm, among the Fates and Furies."

I thoroughly enjoyed Lowe’s take on feminine anger and revenge as this class discusses specific works of art and classic myths. I was reminded of the works of the French feminist Hélène Cixous and her The Laugh of the Medusa and Reveries of the Wild Woman: Primal Scenes. One of the students steals a book of magic, and the girls begin to dabble in the dark arts. Lowe exposes the sinister history of the school, its history, and its environs. She pulls the historic abuse of women and the rumors of female witchcraft to the forefront. Thought it remains hidden, passed down from generation to degeneration from the 15th century, it persists and grows in the midst of the patriarchal regime of the school and the town that houses it.

The Furies
By Katie Lowe
3.5 / 5 ⭐

How far would you go to be accepted into the right club, society, or group of friends? What would you do for those friends, even if things went too far?

🔥 Elm Hollow Girl’s School, a sixteen-year-old girl is found dead. Her stiff body still sitting on a swing, her cold fingers gripping the chains, no cause of death could be found.

🔥 Jump back a year: after a terrible accident kills Violet’s father and little sister, it leaves her mother all but catatonic in front of the television. Violet now feels lost and alone in the world, left behind. The school year brings a new school for her, Elm Hollow, a private girls school with an infamous history. The school was the site of witch trials and its founder had been murdered for practicing witchcraft.

🔥 Violet is surprised when a feisty, bossy girl, Robin, takes her into a group of friends. Robin declares Violet her new best friend. Soon, Violet is asked to become a member of their secret “advanced study group” led by Annabel an eccentric art teacher. Here the four girls study art, mythology, (such as The Furies), and ancient rites and rituals. When the girls come upon a book of spells and magic, they decide a few incantations could come in handy in dealing with certain situations.

🔥 Things begin to unravel when the decaying body of a former student, Emily Frost, who went missing nearly a year ago and was Robin’s best friend, is discovered on the school grounds. Violet begins to wonder who she can trust. She questions if they’ve gone too far; if she’s in too deep.

🔥 This book started off a little slow for me. It took me a while to warm up to the writing style. At about the halfway mark, I became intrigued, and then at the end I was pleasantly surprised by a few twists. The characters are written very well. Robin is so manipulative; you just want to shake Violet, like don’t you see what she’s doing to you? But in that, it displays her need for acceptance so very well. If you enjoy art, magic, and murder mysteries, you will certainly enjoy this book.


Thank you to @Netgalley and @stmartinspress for this ARC

I really wanted to like this one. Set at a private girl’s school that was the site of 17th century witch trials, I was hoping for something like “The Craft” but no. I read the first hundred or so pages and nothing happened, then when “something” happened it was terrible.

DNF at 30%

"The Furies" by Katie Lowe had pretty prose and was intriguing enough to keep me reading to the end. But, overall it just left me feeling gross. I think it was meant to be this empowering story of women taking down the violent men in their lives, but that's not what I got out of it. Instead, it felt like this downward spiral of evil, almost suggesting that women getting a little power in their heads leads them to be as awful and violent and murderous as the men they're fighting. Or that that's the only method they have for dealing these men. Or even that they get punished for trying by ending up in terrible situations.
I liked the dark witchy aspect of it, and honestly there just wasn't enough of it. And what little there was was vague and confusing. The narrator skimmed over the rites and often had the MC, Violet, blacking out and waking up when it was all over. Instead there was a lot of Violet simpering and caving to everything her supposed, terrible best friend Robin wanted, no matter how gruesome and evil. Even the references to The Furies was so sparse and vague that I often forgot that it was supposed to be a thing.
It mostly felt like a really depressing high school drama that turned suddenly really, really dark in kind of an unbelievable way, like it was hard to believe semi-normal people would suddenly start acting so horribly, though I suppose it does happen. Point being, I wasn't convinced. I didn't feel the characters' motivations. And I never connected to Violet. I hated her the whole time. Occasionally it felt like maybe finally she was actually going to do something and grow a spine, even if it was to do something bad, and instead she just crumbled under whatever Robin wanted, right until the end. It was pathetic and sad and not enjoyable at all to read.
So yes, the mystery kept me going. I think I kept hoping something would happen to redeem Violet or make it all worthwhile, but it never really happened. So I would not recommend this to anyone.

First I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity of reading this book..

ok so where should I start, well the MC is telling her story about a year spent at Elm Hollow H.S and all that happened during that year..
at first I was like ok I know that I am not the intended audience but this is definitely not as creepy as it is made out to be.. and in my mind it continues threw the story it really is just strange and dark..
To me and the way that I took the story was MC starts a new school and tries to fit in, she meets the odd(outcast) girls and then becomes a follower so to speak, she wants to badly have the main girl in the group Robin to really like her, its about friendship and family drama and grief and lost and even some witchcraft thrown in,

what I did not like was the story was very dis jointed.. it did not flow well and it did not explain some things and somwe things were not as necessary to the story.. there were times when I felt that the story made no sense and time where I was like ohhh ok.. the story did not really get interesting until more then halfway threw and even by then I just didn't care but I needed to finish it!

This wasn’t anything like I had expected. Such a dark, crazy book with so many twists and odd characters. Perfect fall book.

An incredibly strong and ominous first chapter! The justified anger of girls and women, and the horrors placed upon them without their consent, is what carries this story with Greek myths and dabbles of witchcraft weaving throughout. Greek mythology plays a very large part, and I think anyone who has a great interest in that may enjoy this book!

My favored parts of this were Annabel (the enigmatic and enchanting Aesthetics professor), Nicky (unexpectedly the student I was most interested in learning more about by the end!), and all of the myth and lore surrounding Elm Hollow Academy and the woman who opened the school many, many years prior. I found myself a bit confused during some chapters, feeling as if something was happening "off-screen", and when it was mentioned later on I had felt that I missed where it was previously mentioned to connect the plots together!

There was quite a lot that I could appreciate and understand coming from this book, and a few parts that I felt I couldn't. I would not discourage anyone from trying it out for themselves, as I think many people will enjoy it!

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book!

I've seen this book compared to several other books and movies (my favorite was "mean girls" meets "the craft") and I've enjoyed the ones I've read/seen, so I was super excited to have been chosen by netgalley to read the Furies.
I enjoyed it and in my teens, this would have been a book passed around until the pages fell out, There would have been some of us who felt unnoticed or neglected who would have taken the wrong bits to heart, because there were no right bits. This was not a redeeming tale, this is a story of feminine rage and what happens when it's encouraged to blossom.
I often mention the slow burn, and this one had it for me. It was not fast paced, but it was well-written, and though there were exceptionally slow bits, this is a book that will remain in my mind for a while.

4/5 *I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for my review.

This book was very strange and often not what I expected. There were a couple of occasions I almost stopped reading because it was so confusing, which is why it got 3 stars from me, but I carried on as it started to feel like a Quentin Tarantino with its sudden chaos and complete madness by the end. Glad I read it but probably not one I will re-read.

Violet joins Elm Hollow after the death of her little sister and father. It's a private girls school that has a history of magic and witchcraft thanks to an association with the 17th century witch trials. Violet finds herself drawn to three girls--Robin, Grace, and Alex. She becomes close with them, particularly Robin, and finds herself invited to an advanced study group led by their art teacher, Annabel, which goes into more depth about the witchcraft practiced at the school so long ago. The girls seem to think the magic is real, and that they can harness it. Always lurking in the background is Emily Frost--Robin's former best friend--who died before Violet came to Elm Hollow. She and Violet look very similar. As time passes, Violet starts to wonder if the witchcraft is real. And what really happened to Emily?

The girl is found dead on a swing on a playground on Elm Hollow Academy property--no known cause of death. That's how this novel opens, and then we have Violet, who tells us the story looking back, recounting her time at Elm Hollow. So the story opens dramatically and we know something has terrible happened. And that Violet makes it out okay.

"Inconclusive, they said, as though that changed the fact of it, which was this: a sixteen-year-old girl, dead on school property, without a single clue to suggest why or how."

This book should be been really good--I'm a sucker for private school tales (I thought it was a boarding school one, as well, but it wasn't)--but it just didn't work for me. I thought about putting it aside several times, but I just couldn't. I need to work on my DNF skills.

There is a lot here: two dead girls; witchcraft and the occult; mythology; friendship and coming of age--and none of it feels fully explored. A lot of the book focuses on mythology as Annabel teaches some of it to the girls (I felt myself skimming over that, and I like mythology). There's the focus on witchcraft, but it never seems fully embraced. There's a lot of violence (won't go too far for spoilers) but there are never really any consequences. It's very strange, and honestly, not the sort of YA book I'd encourage for teens.

And, then, I just didn't care for these characters. Robin is hateful, and I couldn't form a bond with Violet, our narrator. That would be all well and good if the action was enough to keep my interest, but it wasn't. The book just felt jumbled, and I wasn't interested in picking it up. Even a few late twists didn't really redeem things for me.

Lots of others have found the story powerful, however, so if you like mean girls with a side of possible witchcraft, you may enjoy this more. 2 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for this book in exchange for a honest review.

Loved this book! The story flows the characters are fascinating and I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend.

This is the story of school girl cliques and all the anger and revenge associated with them. That’s my kind of story! It adds a supernatural vibe for a great twist on a typical YA story. Very cool! I loved how the suspense built up subtly.

I liked the premise of this book, and enjoyed how mythology was mixed with this realistic fiction, but felt it was a little too “out there” for me.

Unpopular opinion alert

I really was looking forward to diving into this book. It took me way to long to finish this book because I struggled so much. I almost had to force myself certain times to keep reading :(.

The characterization was extremely weak in my opinion and this story centers around that! Ugh... no thank you. The story borders on what am I reading to what the heck?

I was expecting The Craft vibes with the witchcraft but this was NOTHING like that. I don't think I was the right reader for this book at all and feel like there may be many that enjoy this but for me this was a no.

2 stars

Thank you so much to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Publication date: 10/8/19
Published to GR: 9/20/19

This book is interesting its plot line and basic character development, in that it carries the narrative popularized by Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic years ago. But other than a questionable and unreliable narrator whose vulnerabilities seemed pretty obvious from early on in the story, there's not much here for a young adult or adult reader to latch onto in the way of an interesting, powerful, or dynamic character. The novel became so predictable that I finally quit reading about halfway through. I wound up turning to other novels such as A Discovery of Witches and The Witches' Kind, similar novels but in different genres, for comparison. I just wasn't drawn in. I was disappointed that this book just didn't quite hold my attention. I really wanted it to. I suspect that some young adult readers might find this novel worth a read, though it's in need of stronger characters to really make an impact.

This book is perfect for the time of year when the evenings are cool and crisp and as the leaves begin changing colours. When you can't escape the feeling that someone is watching you in the dark and when you are always looking over your shoulder. This book gave me the really strong "heebie jeebies". I don't do well with horror type books, so reading this really took me out of my comfort zone, but I am glad I took the chance. This book is very reminiscent of "The Craft", that funky 1990s powerful teenage witch movie.

The book is centered on Violet, a teenage girl who is experiencing a deep sense of loss after her Father and siblings die in a tragic car accident. In her new elite private school she finds a new group of friends which is not all it appears to be.

I do not want to give too much of this book away, but it will leave the reader wondering what is real and what could possibly be magic?

The main story was a little obvious - girls not being nice to other girls. The main characters were quite a mixed bunch. But neverthless it was an interesting read and well written, and keeps the reader interested to the end.

This was a different book for sure. I feel like it had potential, but got bogged down with too much inner dialogue and artistic talk which made the plot slow moving. The book is about people getting murdered, so it should be exciting and fast paced, but it was not. The whole thing is told from Violet's point of view as she looks back on the year she met Robin, Alex, and Grace. Violet is sort of a weak person, she changes to fit what Robin wants and goes along with the group even if she doesn't agree. She basically fell apart, grades in the toilet, lost way too much weight, started drinking, smoking, and doing drugs, but she thinks it's fine because she's totally enamored with Robin. The deaths that happen were crazy and I did like seeing how things played out for the girls. This would benefit from less artistic talk (plays, paintings, novels, etc that spanned pages) and more action.

This is Violet’s story. That of a child whose childhood and life went astray because of death. Five girls who become friends in a school filled with tales of witchcraft. As an adult she reflects on the very serious crimes they committed and the reasons they did so. The story has a mystical air about it that makes the reader question the sanity of the situations. It builds the mystery slowly as it unfolds the life of these troubled teens.

The Furies by Katie Lowe is a young adult contemporary thriller following our main character Violet as she recounts her days at Elm Hollow school for girls after the deaths of her father and sister in a tragic accident, and leading up to the death of a young girl on a swing set which is shown in the opening scene of the book.

The author has a very unique voice in this book, and the airy descriptiveness of it really contributes to the overall atmosphere of the book. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I saw this book described as both contemporary and a thriller, but while I was reading it I really enjoyed the way the plot straddles the line between richly developing the characters you would expect in a mean girls high school contemporary and the atmosphere and mysticism of a thriller.

There were a few times that I found myself having to go back and re-read certain sections that were overly drawn out, and I wasn’t as interested in the art teacher’s lessons on older works of fiction, but they contributed to the context of the story overall.

Overall I enjoyed this book and rated it 3.5 stars. I would recommend it to fans of gritty/dark contemporary, toxic friendships, and female rage/vengeance stories.

Thank you to Harper Collins, NetGalley, and Katie Lowe for this Advance Copy in exchange for my honest review.

If you're a fan of the movie "The Craft," you'll likely enjoy this book, as it has a similar feel to it, though the movie packs more of a punch. I enjoyed the detailing, especially about the history of the town and school, and the characters were well-drawn. The story is dark, which was fine with me, but there a lot of metaphors used, and it is a bit too much at time. There were a few twists I wasn't expecting, but, overall, I'd hoped for more. So this was just an average read for me.