I love this story so much! I had already read it, but was excited to hear the audiobook as well. Yep, even better narrated! The narrator does a great job. This will be one I will relisten to.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a copy of the ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley for access to the audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion. Here goes.. Sigh...This was a dark, dark fairy tale. Lucy and Jake are a couple with two young boys. Jake a businessman and Lucy a stay at home mother. Lucy finds out that her husband has had an affair through the mistress’s husband. The story is from Lucy’s point of view and how she dealt with this discovery and also her feelings about her life as a mother and wife. This story was not for me. Maybe I just didn’t read it at the right time, but I found it very disturbing and the narrator not likable. It seemed as if she did not love her children or her husband. The term sociopath kept coming to mind when I thought of her. I might have understood her feelings and actions more if things had changed after the discovery of the affair, but she didn’t seem to be a devoted wife or mother in the beginning.

This was a relatively short, but powerful story. While this is not normally the kind of book I read, the description intrigued me enough to give it a chance. And I’m glad that I did. It was a dark, twisted book, but it made me think.

I do wish, however, that there would have been more in the way of magic. The book was described as being a fairytale-like story, and there were definitely elements of that. But I would have liked more. Admittedly, I understand that magic and the fantastical elements weren’t really the point of this story. So I understand why they weren’t focused on.

I found the characters to be fascinatingly flawed. Perfect characters tend to be pretty dull and I would certainly not call any of the people in this book perfect. But they were all unique and interesting in their own way. I enjoyed learning about them and seeing their developments—both the good and the bad. I found myself getting frustrated sometimes with them, but I still appreciated the way they were written.

If you’re looking for a feel-good story, I wouldn’t recommend this book. But, if you are prepared for a dark fantasy that touches on a lot of very real issues, I’d suggest giving it a read.

2.5 stars
The Harpy follows Lucy and Jake, happily married (or so we thought). Until Lucy receives a phone call claiming that Jake is having an affair. To get back at Jake, Lucy is allowed to hurt him three times, with disastrous results.

The premise was what really intrigued me and pulled me into listening to this novel. I found the writing to be stunning and lyrical, however, I was bored most of the time. Lucy would go on and on about her past and this detracted me from engaging with the story and characters. I wanted to learn more about Lucy and her family. I did enjoy the allusions to Greek mythology and harpies, as well as Lucy's slow descent into madness, but that was not enough for me to engage with the novel. The ending was also very open-ended and unsatisfying, which brought my rating down because I was confused about what happened.

In terms of the narration, it was so well done! Clare Corbett did a wonderful job of bringing Lucy to life, voicing her anger and concerns.

Overall, it was a solid read. It had so much potential to be better though!

The Harpy is a stunning story about marriage and infidelity about love and revenge. It is a wife's reflection on her marriage, womanhood, and motherhood. The story keeps you engaged from the beginning to the end, and it's a quick read / listen. I liked the writing and the story.

I had previously read the novel in an ebook format, and now I listened to it as an audiobook. I was fascinated the first time, and it was an equally great experience this time. Narration is outstanding, and it suits the story completely.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to listen to this! All opinions are my own.

4/5⭐️
Lucy leads a routine life devoted to her two boys. But one day she learns that her husband Jake, had performed adultery from a mysterious man. She becomes furious and she confronts her husband. He apologises of course, but she wants him to feel her pain. They decide on a revenge “plan” that Lucy can hurt Jake three times to call it even. Three times is specific, thats the same amount of time a Harpy, mythical bird takes to hunt down men. The Harpy according to Greek Mythology is half-bird half-woman creature that tends to hold grudge, especially towards men. A part of Lucy metamorphoses into Harpy each time she hurts Jake.

The Harpy, is a simple yet intense multilayered novel about trust issues. I assumed, at-least tried to understand that Lucy had multiple-personalities. She is Lucy when around children, but when revenge strikes, she is Harpy!! I hated Jake right from the start, he is shallow and unfaithful. In a way he deserves his “punishment”. Its a beautiful book if you’re looking for a profound story that mixes both reality and fantasy.

Thank you Netgalley, Grove Press, Recorded Books for the arc in exchange for an honest opinion.

The Harpy – 4 Stars **Contains spoliers**

I finished this fantastic book about a week ago – and have been mulling over exactly how to put my thoughts into a review.

To start off with I absolutely loved Megan Hunter’s writing style within this book. I really look forward to going back and picking up her earlier book, ‘The End We Start From’ (of which I have already heard excellent reviews for).

The narration of the audiobook was superb, the voice of Clare Corbett was very well suited to the character of Lucy expressing her spiral emotional state throughout the book in an extremely engaging manner.

I found the overall plot of the novel started off very strong introducing the tired yet resolute mother, Lucy and her two children, Paddy and Ted as they navigate the twists and turns of the family-destructing reveal of Jake’s affair. The premise of the ‘Three Times’ agreement was both intriguing and suspenseful adding to the overall outstanding engagement Hunter demands from the reader. The raw emotion expressed through Hunter’s prose – kept me entirely at the edge of my seat - through (almost) the entire novel.

This takes me to ‘almost’ exception, the ending for me brought this unfortunately down from a top tier 5 star read to a 4. I found that it wrapped up rather abruptly leaving unanswered questions about Lucy’s hospital ridden husband and her two small children (who she spends the majority of the book focusing on in some form or another) who are suddenly shoved not even to the sidelines but entirely out of the story altogether. It felt like I had started reading a completely different book, the attitude even the prose was so drastically different to what I had been ‘told’ so far that that last couple of chapters really jarred me out of the story.

I feel like had the author explored the more ‘physical’ changes present at the end; earlier in the novel, rather than just mentally and emotionally it would have made the final ‘transformation’ far less disjointed.

Regardless of my opinions on the ending - this was an intensely interesting and engrossing read that I highly recommend to both fantasy and phycological and domestic literary readers.

The Hapry was a great book. I enjoyed listening to this story. I will be recommending this book to my book club.

The Harpy is a book I've been thinking about the last couple of days, and in the end, I'm still not sure where I should rate it. While I was listening with interest, I found the story to be a sort of dull rant. But simultaneously... do I enjoy rants with very sarcastic protagonists? Maybe.

I will also acknowledge that this might be my favorite cover I've seen this year! It stands out and perfectly matches this dark vibe you get while reading Hunter's writing. Speaking of the writing, I was definitely impressed by how well the author could mix something sort of eloquent and fancy, with almost constant cursing.

I'll be very interested in Hunter's upcoming work, but the plot for The Harpy didn't go to the places I was expecting and did let me down in the end. I think a lot of other readers might connect to the main character, considering she speaks from a very emotional and undoubtedly honest part of herself.

This was such an unusual book, I don't know where to begin on reviewing it. The plot was full of OMG moments and the writing was beautiful. It was so unique but well worth reading.

The Harpy is a perfect example of genre bending - but in the very best way. I'm very picky about magical realism/fantasy books. They sometimes come across as contrived and nonsensical. This book works! I never thought that a story about infidelity could be poignant, identifiable and even beautiful. Thé subject typically puts many readers in a morally uncomfortable position and makes you ask yourself...what would I do if it happened to me? I highly recommend this book! I was lucky to have enjoyed the audiobook version. Wonderful narrator.

I became intrigued with this book after hearing of it on the From the Front Porch podcast. This novel lived up to the hype! Lucy's character and her darkness kept me turning pages and left me stunned. Highly recommend!

This was such a compelling writing style. I love reading stories that give me a "what the heck am I reading" response and this book completely did that. I wanted a little more from the ending, but ultimately I enjoyed the story and will check out this author again.

Lucy has recently discovered her husband’s infidelity and they have an arrangement in which she can hurt him 3 times to settle the score (super healthy, right?) but he does not know when or how she will hurt him. This could go a lot of ways and a lot of ways does it go, but none of which were the ways I was hoping. ⁣
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Hunter’s writing is good, but the book’s biggest flaw is an identity crisis. There’s the situation, there’s her fascination with The Harpy mythology, there’s flashbacks to her childhood, and the pressures of motherhood. There is a lot here and little to no focus. The ending is very, very open to interpretation, which I don’t mind, but I know some readers will hate. ⁣
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If you read it, know that it is very short. It is fable-esque, but it really just never took off for me, which makes me sad because the beautiful design and the premise really had me hooked, but the execution let me down.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc! 3 stars! I don't even know how to describe this book. The MC find out about her husband's affair and in exchange for them staying together she gets to hurt him?? Wasn't crazy about the narrator or the narration style. There were a lot of weird pauses which could've been the tracking or the narrator but it wasn't smooth.

This book wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be based on the summary, and I think that is what hurt it the most.

What the summary sounded like: Woman finds out her husband cheated on her so she gets to hunt him for sport, slowly turning her physical body into the monster that her husband mentally turned her into.

What I got: Woman thinks a lot about her past and the fact that her husband cheated on her, barely messes with him and then in the last five pages turns into a harpy.

I am recently loving that mix of real life mental problems with magical realism and I was hoping this book would be the next best one. If the magical realism part of the book had been part of the story from the beginning and we had seen this woman struggle to hide her monstrous side as a way to reflect her husband hiding his monstrous side it would have been amazing. But really what most of the book was, was the main woman just thinking about things. I think this could have been a classic story if it had been flipped around a bit more and edited better.

The writing wasn't bad, I found myself never wanting to dnf the book, and yet I never really felt myself hooked into the story either. The ending was extremely interesting but it was so quick and had no foreshadowing that it came out of nowhere and left almost as quickly.

Not a "bad" book by any means, could probably get a 3 star for most people.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

‘The Harpy’ by Megan Hunter is a fascinating, evocative, and poetically written domestic novel. It is a very short novel with a very dark and incisive tone reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh or Sally Rooney. At the beginning, the narrator is a typical mother and wife whose world is rocked by learning of her husband’s infidelity. Through the protagonist’s narration, a number of issues are addressed about women and motherhood: from the expectation of sacrifice to the invisibility of women and their unending domestic labor. ‘The Harpy’ swiftly becomes a story about revenge and the protagonist asserting herself and slowly giving up on unyielding family obligations. Throughout the novel, we learn about harpies in mythology and begin to view their behavior as a reaction to men’s bad, selfish, careless, and sometimes violent behavior. The narrator’s journey subtly brings her out of invisibility as she begins to act out more and more and against her husband’s behavior, which somehow she is partly blamed for. I listened to the audiobook, which is expertly performed by Clare Corbett. Her superb narration brought so much to this text. Overall, ‘The Harpy’ was enticing, thought-provoking, and beautifully written.

Thank you Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and Recorded Books for providing this digital and audiobook ARC.

This was so, so good. For starters, the writing was incisive and edging on poetic. Every sentence echoed with artistry, yet it remained completely plot driven. I love that balance: beautiful writing that doesn’t waste a breath on self indulgence. Now, the story itself was devastatingly perfect. The story takes off with the holy trinity recipe of almost every woman’s marriage plot - sacrificed career, cute kids she loves but doesn’t like, and an infidel of a husband. Lucy is a scorned woman when she learns that Jake is cheating on her with an older woman. The veneer of a happy marriage is shattered, and Lucy is given the right to consensual revenge. She can hurt Jake three times in return. Here is where the book really takes off into its own, where it is unlike any other psychological thriller I have ever read. As Lucy acts out her punishments, an ancient stirring in her starts to come out and a feminine beast is unleashed. Her mystical transformation will have you reeling.

The ending - really. As much as I enjoy a vague, poetic ending - this one seriously challenged me. It made me question my entire understanding of the book. I may have to read it again just to delve deeper.
Infidelity. Male Infidelity.
Lucy receives a voicemail on an normal, average, carting the children around, making meals day. A man informs Lucy her husband, Jake, is having an affair with his wife. Though Jake is often late home from work, Lucy has never questioned Jake's behavior.
Lucy was exposed to domestic violence as a young child- warping her sense of power, forgiveness. These memories are reviewed while Lucy tries to forgive Jake, to move on.
Jake agrees Lucy can hurt him three times. Lucy chooses violence, control, fear to forgive her husband .
A part of me doesn't think she is wrong. Lucy doesn't understand how to work through her anger, depression, sense of safety. She must rob Jake of his.
Lucy's obsession with harpies from a young age through college provide self exploration, vindicating Lucy's three forms of harm.
Aren't women the root of all the world's problems?

I enjoyed the audiobook. Great voice, intonation, pauses. Held my interest very well.

The Harpy by Megan Hunter is quite a dark novel, it explores relationships and follows a lady whose husband has cheated on her. He allows her to get her own back and do three nasty things to him. She agrees and we follow the repercussions of her decisions. The protagonist has a long-lasting obsession with the harpy and draws inspiration from the stories she has read in the past.

Overall I found this book a little too morbid for my liking, don't get me wrong I like a darker themed book for time to time. But this one just wasn't my favourite. I felt the writing was actually very good, and the narration great, I would recommend to people who like darker, melancholy reads.