"We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives."

The Fury, by master psychological thriller author Alex Michaelides, leads us to how warped and wild this writer is with his latest fiendishly fun tale of built up resentment, anger, greed and the ultimate act of violence, murder.

Elliot Chase, our cheeky storyteller, narrates his version of what happened on the private Greek Island of movie star Lana Farrar that led to murder and more twists than the windy storms on the island.

In the clever playbill sent by the publishers we are given quick introductions to the players of this unreliable narrated story. Eliot tells us he's a playwright and Lana's best friend. Famed actress Kate Crosby might argue she's Lana's best friend since they met first and she introduced Lana to her current husband, wealthy businessman Jason Miller. Also on the turbulent island is Lana's teenage son, Leo from another relationship. Rounding out the field is long time housekeeper Agathi and caretaker Nikos. Before we are halfway through one of them will be dead and one will have killed them.

Listening to the audiobook in between reading the novel I was blown away by award winning English actor Alex Jennings. His portrayal of Eliot was such a distinctive performance. His subtle confusions, "I am not sure where I am, the present or the past," added to the turmoil felt throughout the book.

The angry winds, known as The Fury, reflects the power of human emotions and how just as we can't control the weather, we often can't control our
feelings nor ability to tell an unbiased story. The first half sets up the perfect storm for a killing. The second half twists and turns every supposed truth into a whirlwind of an unreliable narrator.

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Alright, here’s my once-in-a-blue-moon thriller read! I don’t think I’ve read one since 2022! (The Storygraph says Killers of a Certain Age counts as a thriller - read late 2023 - but I disagree).

I enjoyed this one! The style is interesting: the narrator tells the story directly to the audience, as though we’re listening to a verbal story from an acquaintance. The character of the narrator knows a reader is listening to the story as they are telling it, and it’s obvious to the audience that the same character would tell the story differently if they were just writing it down for themselves in a journal. It definitely makes you think about why the character chooses to explain things in certain ways. (And why the author chose to have the character make these choices…).

The pacing is interesting too: the narrator tells us some parts of the story several times, adding a new piece of information for further context each time. The plot unfolds bit by bit. And the plot of this book – the reveals, the ups and downs, et cetera – are not about the murder. Those first two sentences of the synopsis are accurate: this isn’t a murder mystery. It’s a character study. The plot is about the main character. It’s a really interesting and neat way to tell a story, and as someone who doesn’t read a lot of thrillers and doesn’t mind that this one has pretty slow pacing… I enjoyed it. I think it’d make a great book discussion pick for the right book group.

(Thank you for the e-ARC! I have also posted this review to Goodreads and The Storygraph, linked here on NetGalley.)

This was my first time reading anything by this author. I’m one of the few people who has not read The Silent Patient, although after reading this book, I’m really excited to add that one to my reading list! As for The Fury, I really enjoyed this one. I loved the Greek Island setting, the unreliable narrator. I felt the pace was perfect and I enjoyed getting to know the cast of characters in the first half of the book. I thought it was very original the way the book is written in Acts. I loved the twists and for me the epilogue was the best part for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and to Celadon books for the ARC for my unbiased review. I definitely recommend this book to other readers.

Thank you so so much Netgalley, Alex Michaelides, and Celadon Books for this superb masterpiece! What a way to start off January 2024. Wow, just wow!!! Amazingly written, intricately woven story. I enjoyed this story so much and recommend this to the highest! Stop whatever you are reading and doing and read this!!!

I love a murder mystery - the tension, the unknown, the clues. The Fury is a murder mystery narrated by one of the book's major characters. Initially, the narrator is likable, and funny, and makes for an entertaining book.

I ended up not liking this book though because he narrates the same events just told in different circumstances, several different ways. I don't want to give too much away.

This book has a very Unusual Suspects kind of ending - a surprise for sure.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for gifting me a digital ARC of the new novel by Alex Michaelides - 5 stars!

Let's meet our narrator, Elliot Chase, a screenwriter. He's on a private Greek island with his best friend, former movie star, Lana Farrar. Also there are her husband and son, a close friend, and two employees. But Elliot will tell you this isn't quite an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery you're about to embark upon. Someone will die though.

I loved this book! Just like Elliot promised, I felt like I had just pulled up a seat and was listening to him tell me a story. He tells us the backstories of all the characters, but again in a way that felt cozy and interesting. And interested I was - I couldn't put this one down. Structured like a play (a Greek tragedy), It's creative, it's atmospheric (the wind off the island, called the fury), it's tense and surprising. Bravo, Mr. Michaelides!

This book holds many a twist. I never knew where it was gonna go. Elliott was definitely an unreliable narrator, I didn’t trust him from the start. The pacing was done very well, and I think the ending is what made me like the book. Overall, it was a good, easy, fast read.

This was an extremely slow burn with an unsatisfying ending. I liked the originality of the narrator speaking directly to his readers; his audience. Making you feel a part of the story he has written about a murder. But the narrative keeps changing as it goes on, switching between fiction and the truth, twisting the story to satisfy his needs. Most of the book was slow and the narrator rambled on, distracting from the main story. He gives a lot of introspection and it gets overly descriptive, which was quite boring. I've decided this author is not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for this eARC

"...the Aegean wind to menos, which means "the fury in English."

So, what is Alex Michaelides latest book, The Fury, about? There is the primary protagonist, Lana Farrar, a reclusive ex-movie star who invites a small party to spend Easter with her on a small Greek Island. They are are rather trapped due to the elements, and it is during this time that secrets. lies and revenge are slowly unravelled. As the story develops, there is the point of view of Elliot Chase, and how he tells this story in the most unusual of ways.

Having received a physical copy of this book from Celadon, I was eager to sit back in my recliner and read it. However, I took the chance that I might be approved for the Audiobook on NetGalley, which I am thankful that I was. It was excellently narrated by Alex Jennings, especially as the unseen character Elliot Chase delivered much of the story from his point of view.

As is quite often the case in any mystery/thriller, our characters in The Fury have secrets, deceit, lies and more that pop up just about on every page. This lends well to fabulous pacing. Factor in the many twists and turns in Alex Michaelides third book (The Silent Patient in 2019 and The Maidens in 2021), I definitely enjoyed it, albeit his first two books performed better for me.

A question that may come up is what does Elliot Chase have to do with Lana Farrar, and also, how does one of the seven guests who were invited to the island end up dead? Just like in his first two books, our Greek author mixes in a bit of Greek mythology, which lends itself no doubt to excellent research that works well to blend the past with the present.

With Elliot's form of narration, it was very easy to feel connected to the story, especially as the locked room trope was the premise. I truly enjoy books that have unreliable narrators and with only so many guests (on the island in this case), so everyone was suspect which left me guessing during much of the book.

Another reviewer compared the style of writing and storytelling to the Netflix movie The Glass Onion, and I definitely agree with that comparison, so I just had to include that thought in this review. Makes me want to re-watch both Knives Out and The Glass Onion.

I look forward to the next book Alex Michaelides writes and hope that I can continue to read his work for years to come. He is a gifted author and I am eager to watching his growth and development as he pens these thrillers for his readers.

Many thanks to Celadon Books and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5 stars

I’m very conflicted about this one. It starts as a typical closed door murder mystery set in a Greek island. I’m not that big of a fan of this type of story. Then suddenly we are transported back to New York for some background story and character development. I really enjoyed getting to know the characters despite the fact that they were equally unlikeable. What really killed the story for me was the narrator. Constant back and forth trying to create tension and suspense. It happened this way no actually it happened that way and on and on we go. I thought it dragged and didn’t deliver surprises the way it should. I was just surprised that I was still reading the book. By the end I was utterly exhausted.

Okay, so this is such a tough review for me to write because I don’t know how to express my thoughts on this one. I was for sure hooked and couldn’t wait to find out where this was going. I really loved Lana’s character but hated everyone else and yet I still really enjoyed this book for its uniqueness and wit. This is so unlike Michaeline’s other novels but I still felt it was “his” story if that makes sense. The Greek tragedy aspect was well done as was the use of past and present timelines. I did bail on the audiobook (couldn’t get behind the narrator’s voice) so I would say read this one instead.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC! A much anticipated novel from the author of The Silent Patient - one of my all-time favorites. Great writing from a perspective authors don’t really give. You are being told a story by Elliot, who makes you feel like a friend. I really enjoyed this.

This is a hard book to describe. Sort of a murder mystery. Who did it and why? The characters are mostly actors and writers. I thought all of them were pretty shallow. Good writing by the author so i think a lot of people will like the book. It took a lot to finish the book since i just wanted to know how it would all shake out. I was really surprised so that was good. Never did have the story go in any predictable way.
Really great location descriptions. I wanted to be on the Greek island. White beaches, clear blue water. I don't think i would have liked to be there with any of the characters. This book was hard to put in any category so everyone will need to read it to form their own opinion.

I received a copy for an unbiased review.

I found this book to be very compelling and definitely kept my interest throughout the story. The narration especially I found to be very captivating, with Elliott speaking to us as if we're old friends who met at a bar, often interjecting other people's storylines with his own snarky comments, which I enjoyed.

I also found the twists of this book to be very compelling; I enjoyed them more than Michaelides other books, which I found to be slightly more predictable and average. Avoiding spoilers, these twists made me gasp more than most other books, and I especially liked thinking back and realizing that a lot of the info there had already been provided to me.

My main gripe with this book was with the prose itself; the sentence structures seemed to have no variety. There would be paragraphs where all the sentences were like 'He said this. He did this. Then, he thought this. He was this.' I'm not sure if that was a choice or just an oversight, but it made the prose feel stilted and amateur to me.

I really liked the set-up of this novel. Told from the POV of one character who explains the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of everyone around him, this has the classic feel of an unreliable narrator. I was constantly questioning what was real, how much of the story I could trust, and what was real. This tale had many twists and turns -- some of which were predictable, and some that caught me completely off-guard.

This story reminded me of "The Glass Onion" on Netflix -- a group of wealthy, if slightly estranged, friends travel to a private island for a spring getaway. While there, a murder occurs. Told from the POV of one one character, the story bounces between his interpretation of the actions and motivations of those around him.

If you've read Alex Michaelides's previous novels, you'll enjoy the cameos of characters from The Silent Patient and The Maidens, but reading these is not necessary for the purpose of this book. I did find the story to be somewhat predictable and felt that it was a little unoriginal (see "The Glass Onion"), but overall enjoyed the premise.

I had a high expectation for this book as The Silent Patient was SO good.

It did not let me down!

The story is told in a first point of view but it’s not your usual 1st POV. It’s told as if it’s a play with 5 main acts.

The narrator is unreliable but I’d say no one can be trusted.

The twist? The plots? There are very good ones!! Up to the very end!!

The story takes places on an Island in Greece but the narrator takes you down memory lane, and few side stories to be able to understand what is going on. He talks to you as if you’re at a bar and having a discussion with a stranger and you just sit and listen.

Very different but so well done! Chapters are short which is also awesome!

I receive my copy from Netgally.

If you like thriller, I recommend this book!!

Happy Pub Day to The Fury! Our story begins on a private Greek island owned by reclusive former film star, Lana Farrar, where Lana and her closest confidants have travelled for a seemingly relaxing Easter weekend trip. Set against an idyllic backdrop of olive tree groves and the mythology of the island’s stormy, temperamental wind, the narrator invites us into a tale of murder, betrayal, friendship, theatre, and chaos. By the end of the weekend, as the narrator states outright, one of the guests will be dead and another will be the culprit.

I liked this book, and on my personal Michaelides scale it rises above The Maidens and falls after The Silent Patient. The quick pacing kept me absorbed until the end, although I often found myself rolling my eyes at some of the character’s theatrical antics (not necessarily a bad thing, especially when the primary characters are literally theatre/film actors). As with other texts by this author, The Fury calls into question the relationship between the narrator and reader. The narrator is our only window into the story — what does this mean for the integrity of the story? Does the narrator’s account become the truth, or the Truth? Alas, read if you need a juicy bout of drama and mystery to start off your year of reading!

MY REVIEW: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
👉 Alex Michaelides can do NO WRONG in my book! Everything he touches… GOLD!!
👉 The execution--a story within a story (a play within a play???), the (unreliable?) narrator telling you what's what, the play (the plays!!!), the actors and the acting--was such an interesting way to tell the story. I was frustrated in some parts but it did really pull together at the end…
👉 Speaking of the end, I was really *really* rooting for exactly what I wanted--And while I didn't get EVERYTHING, I got enough to be happy lol (and still a little bit mad, but doesn't that make for a better book?!?)
👉 If you loved Michaelides' other books, this one will for sure be a good ride 🤝

I loved the Silent Patient. I was ready to dive in for more mystery and suspense and was so so sad this fell flat for me. It is slow. But with absolutely no tension. We have an unreliable narrator and a murder on an island. Give me some And Then There Were None but instead got And Then You Were Bored. I want to be kept guessing but knew the who was murdered and who did it but not the whys and with everyone being absolutely unlikeable, I didn't care at all for the whys. There were twists but nothing I cared about. The most interesting part was the wind - the fury, give me more wind. Is that a sad statement about a murder mystery? I liked the Greek island wind the best?

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

With THE SILENT PATIENT being one of my all time favorite mystery/thrillers, I could not wait to read this one. Although I enjoyed THE FURY, it, sadly, fell below the bar set by Alex Michaelides.

A trip to a private Greek island with a retired movie star and her friends ends in tragedy. The story was engaging and the twists kept you guessing as to what was true and what was an act as several of the friends were, indeed, actors. Told in varying time periods in order to complete the back story on each character coupled with the point of view of the guest/friend/narrator, I found the flow to be choppy.

3.5 stars rounded to 4. My thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the advanced e-copy of this book.