Thank you to Cleadon Publisher and Net galley for the book The Fury by Alex Michaelides, I was happy to get a book by this author I have read two other books and I have liked his writing style. This book has a different writing style since the narrator is talking to us, however this writing style took me a little time to get used to in the beginning. This book has quick short twisty chapters which made it easier to read and kept you reading. I loved how the author mentioned the title is the book.

Not what I expected. This was just ok for me. It was good but I wasnt completely invested in what was going on in the story.

The Fury is the epitome of a thriller with an unreliable narrator. We meet him in the first of five acts, and it’s all dramatics from there. The chapters are short and I found myself flying through them in the first two acts, but then things slow down considerably for act three. I started to lose some interest here with the character background building and could have done with less of it without harming the overall story.

The Fury is a wild ride where until the very end, you can’t be sure what happened.

Lana Farrar is a beautiful retired actress and one of the most famous women in the world. Her first husband died and had a son, Leo, with him. She’s currently married to Jason. Kate , a theater actress, is a friend of Lana’s. Elliot Chase, a play writer, is a close friend of Lana’s. Nikos is the caretaker of the Greek island Lana owns and Agathi is Lana’s housekeeper. Lana decides to invite all of them to the island which is known for its wind, better known as the fury.
Three shots ring out in the night that makes everyone look to see what happened. They find a body lying on the ground covered in blood.
The story involves friendships, tensions, unrequited feelings, lies, resentments, secrets, drama, obsession, backstabbing, vengeance. The Fury reads like an Agatha Christie novel. I enjoyed the descriptive setting, the plot and the twists. All the characters had something to hide. There were many twists and turns.

Thank you #NetGalley and #Celadon publishing

A mystery thriller told as a narration from one of the involved parties. I found the beginning of this book a bit slow, but it really picked up and was a fun read. I can't say I was surprised by the ending, but the journey to get there was great.

Summary: Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex-movie star and is one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to her idyllic private Greek island. I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder. We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered. But who am I? My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.

Genre: Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★★


My Thoughts:
This is Alex Michaelides's third novel and his third psychological thriller. I went into this novel excited to read it because I loved his first two books. They were both five-star reads for me. And just like the first two books, just when I felt like I knew what would happen ~ I didn't.


The omniscient narrator of this story speaks directly to the readers as he retells the story from his perspective. His narration gives us a bit of a snarky narrator vibe that breaks the conventional tone that most mystery novels give. I am still undecided if I liked this approach, which partially plays into my rating of three stars.


The Greek Isles provide a beautiful backdrop for the story, with some Greek mythology woven throughout. The story is centered on Elliot's group of friends and, of course, Lana Farrar. Elliot starts out by telling us he is an unreliable narrator in the first chapter, so when the twists and turns start to take shape throughout this novel, I was constantly questioning what is real or not.


As I got further and further into the story, I realized I wasn't ever truly pulled into the story. The main characters didn't grab my attention like Alex's first book did. This new book felt like it had one too many plot twist.


It's worth the read if you loved The Silent Patient or The Maidens... however, it ranks lower/doesn't quite hit the mark for me like his other two book for me. It is a quick read with short chapters that you can finish in a few days.


Thanks NetGalley and Celadon publishing for the ARC in exchange for my review! Pub Date: 1/16/2024

The Fury is a wonderfully paced thriller where a reclusive ex-movie star and her fabulously famous friends take a tripe to a private Greek island, where a murder takes place. Elliot Chase has a surprising story to tell. I dove into this book with high anticipation. For some reason, while the story did not grab me as I hoped it would - it had its fair share of dangling. I was surprised to find this book also had a spoiler for The Silent Patient, which I was not expecting. But I loved the silent nod towards that book. I did find it a bit confusing in some parts, but it could have been the narrative used. Overall I give this book a solid 3.75 stars rounded up to 4 stars and recommend it to fans of The Silent Patient.

The duplicity!!! This author is so good, and I found this much more satisfying than The Maidens. The Silent Patient will forever be my favorite though. But this was still so so good!

Lana Farrar is a former movie star, and while she remains one of the most famous women in the world, she prefers a much more reclusive lifestyle. To escape London’s weather, she invites her friends and family to join her on her private Greek island. But an idyllic weekend is just not in the cards. Isolated by strong winds, tensions amongst the group will come to head. Many years of jealousies will culminate in revenge fantasies come to life, and by the end of the night, one of them will be murdered.

This was a unique psychological thriller with interesting pacing. Narrated by Elliott, a writer himself, we get this story in five acts. What made this stand out was how much and when the reader receives important bits of information to make the story progress. Elliott himself is egotistical and delusional which makes him unreliable and unlikable but in a way that worked for me.

Things to know going in: these are not empathetic characters. As much as Elliott sings Lana’s praises, I felt zero connection to her or anyone else. The only person I could semi root for was Nikos but we don’t get any closure for his story. The end definitely left me with questions. For me, I flew through the beginning but the last third of the book felt much slower despite the climax and reveal.

One more little detail I did love was Michaelides’ callback to characters from his previous books. So fun!

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon for the ARC!

I absolutely LOVED this! It was a clue-like storytelling laid out by a very flawed narrator. I truly enjoyed The Maidens and The Silent Patient but this is easily my favorite Michaelides novel! My enjoyment was not so much from what happened in the story as it was how the story was told to me! I just wanted to listen to more of the story...
Thank you NetGalley, Celadon Books and Alex Michaelides for allowing me to read this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. My opinions are my own.

I received both an ARC and the audiobook. I only listened to the audiobook. My review is below.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the chance to review the audiobook version of The Fury. I attest my review is my own unbiased evaluation of this new novel.

Having previously listened to Alex Michaelides' The Silent Patient, I was anxious to hear this new work entitled The Fury. The Fury is named for strong and sometimes violent winds, and the windy weather plays a prominent role on a Greek island in this book. The weather is not the main character; that role belongs to a reclusive former actress Lana Farrar who has invited some of her closest friends to spend Easter weekend on her private island.

This may sound a bit like the wonderful Agatha Christie novel Ten Little Indians (also retitled And Then There Was One) but this work differs in that there is only a single murder on the island--but who dies? Michaelides teases the reader/listener with a twisting plot.

The other main character is Elliott Chase, who serves as the narrator of the story. This is not to be confused with the narrator of the audiobook itself, Alex James, whose talents add to the richness of the story.

Like the Silent Patient, The Fury features many twists and turns that keeps the listener/reader guessing as to what will happen next. It is a modern Greek tragedy for sure! I can't offer a lot more without spoilers, which I try to avoid in my reviews.

Let me just conclude by saying if you read the Silent Patient you will enjoy this murder mystery. In my view, the Silent Patient was a masterpiece of a book. While The Fury is very good, it is a different experience for the reader. I give it 4.5 stars.

I think because of the technique, the narrator, and the writer's style, all the elements in this book play very well. Besides, the setting was quite atmospheric for this kind of plot. This is the second book that I read by Michaelides and I can tell his style is already been cemented. Bravo!

Very atmospheric! I’m starting to enjoy unreliable narrators more now thanks to this book. I love Alex’s writing style! This isn’t my favorite of his but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Award-winning author Alex Michaelides returns with The Fury, set largely on Aura, a private Greek Island gifted years ago to Lana Farrar, a retired actress, by her first husband, producer Otto Krantz. In part, writing a variation on the locked-room mystery, Michaelides has placed only seven people on the island: Lana, her teenage son Leo, her second husband Jason, the island’s caretaker Nikos, Lana’s housekeeper Agathi, and two of Lana’s friends, actress Kate and playwright Elliott. The prologue establishes the fact that Elliott, the first-person narrator, is conscientiously writing a story and has been read advice never to start with the weather, yet he does exactly that, establishing the scene for the murder—the wild winds hitting the island the night Leo hears three gunshots, races in their direction, and reaches the scene shortly before the others—a scene “like the climactic scene in a Greek tragedy.” However, as Elliott tells readers, this “was just the beginning.”

In the first chapter, Elliott debates whether the story he is about to tell is a murder mystery or a love story, adding that readers have probably read newspaper accounts of “Murder Island.” Elliott briefly introduces himself and reveals that he is telling the story well after the fact, basing it on one of the many notebooks he has kept over the years to record his thoughts, dreams, overheard conversations, and observations. The story he is about to tell, he explains, is a true story about real people, more a whydunit than a whodunit—”a character study, and examination of who we are; and why we do the things we do.” Indeed, the book’s epigraph, taken from Heracleitus, states, “Character is destiny.”

Organized into five dramatic acts with frequent references to drama theory as well as to Greek tragedies and mythology, The Fury offers much to readers other than a captivating, suspense-filled plot. As a former literature teacher, I enjoyed the literary allusions and occasionally found myself researching an unfamiliar detail. However, the book is an easy read, and readers need not understand the allusions or pause for research to become caught up in Elliott’s account of events. Granted, readers must accept Elliott’s roundabout narrative, which slowly but surely reveals the truth of the murder. Elliott, himself, explains his circuitous path as the normal way we communicate, jumping back and forth, skipping ahead, editing as we go along. He does all that, and the process makes the story, one full of twists and surprises.

Thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for an advance reader copy of this captivating new novel by Alex Michaelides. Having read the book, I look forward to listening to the audio version--to hearing the reader bring Elliott to life.

Shared on GoodReads and Barnes & Noble

(3.5 stars) A murder on a private Greek island cut off from the mainland by a crazy windstorm? The concept sounded too juicy to ignore. We are led through this story by Elliot Chase, an author, who is recounting the events of the Easter weekend trip to us, the readers. The owner of the island is Lana Farrar, an ex-actress who continues to be a well-known face across the world. She invites her friend Elliot, along with her friend and fellow actress, Kate. Also there are her second husband, Jason, and her son, Leo, as well as her two faithful employees, Agathi and Nikos.

I always enjoy stories where you are told early on that there is going to be a murder and then spend the book working through not only who dies, but how it happens and who killed them. We find out about halfway through who the victim is and then spend the rest of the book answering the two other questions. The first part of the book felt repetitive to me and dragged, but the last 100 pages made up for that. I do wish the pacing could have been a little more even though. The chapters are short though which makes it a quick read.

I do have to say that I didn’t necessarily see one of the major twists coming which is always a pleasant surprise in thrillers. Where this book lost some ground with me was the narration by Elliot. He is constantly addressing the reader and acknowledging that he might not be a great narrator. I also felt like he knew things at times that he couldn’t possibly know. If you enjoy books with unreliable narrators that you can fly through in a weekend, The Fury will be for you. Thank you to Celadon Books and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

Elliot Chase, the narrator of this story, is without a doubt a Narcissist.

He succeeds in pulling on your heartstrings by describing an early childhood of emotional and physical neglect or abuse that bordered on the criminal.

Elliott left home at seventeen and lived on the streets of London. He hints that he did whatever he had to to survive - right down to sex trade work. Elliott's escape mechanisms from this sordid life were alcohol, drugs - and the movies. It is there that he first saw and fell in love with Lana Farrar: flawlessly beautiful and larger than life on the massive movie theater screen.

When Elliott is taken up by a famous writer as her live in lover, Elliott eventually gets the opportunity to meet his idol. A strange friendship evolves. Alas, Elliott is totally obsessed by Lana, whereas Lana can only feel friendship for Elliott.

And therein lies the crux of the conflict. Elliott deludes himself time and again into believing that Lana does in fact love him. Even when she marries someone else, he still cannot shake the belief that they were meant to be together. You do feel a tad sorry for him, but he is so obviously the author of his own misfortune. The lies he tells everyone else and himself are keeping him locked in an unhealthy fantasy world.

I can't go into much more detail for fear of spoilers. I did suspect a major plot point half way through this story. (With all these actors and dramatists lurking about in this novel - who could resist the temptation to turn the tables on their tormentors in this way?!!) I'm sure many of you will suspect the truth as well, but the dramatic reveal was still gripping for me - regardless of the fact that I had already guessed what was afoot.

I did enjoy this well-written, character driven thriller by Alex Michaelides. <u>The Maidens</u> is my favourite of his novels thus far - and Mariana Andros makes an appearance in this story - as Elliott's therapist. (I always enjoy it when Michaelides links his other books in this subtle way!)

I'm rating this one 4.3 out of 5 stars because the imagery and storytelling were stellar, but the pitfalls of having an unreliable, emotionally disturbed narrator is that you weren't always sure what was wishful thinking on Elliot's part or actual fact. With this type of storyteller, there is a fair amount of backtracking and misdirection, so the reader can get a bit muddled, and I wasn't always sure if Elliott - or I, for that matter, were to blame for these muddles!
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" kept running through my head!

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

i was excited to read this one because michaelides employs a similar technique as i’m trying (very much so attempting) to do in my WIP. however, his attempt at redefining the whodunnit with the murder of a beloved movie star was very much a lesson in what not to do. the plot jumped around far too much for this to be believable.

Absolutely loved this book! My first 5 star read of the year and a page turner that has me finishing this one in a few days. Each character was well developed and played an integral role in this island murder mystery. I appreciated the narration POV and the multi-twist ending. With so many murder mysteries out there, this one stands out and is one I’ll recommend to my fellow readers. Thank you for the advanced copy.

I'm certainly not alone in this, but the Silent Patient is one of my favorite thrillers. THAT TWIST, right? And so I almost feel badly for Alex Michaelides because how can anything else he writes for the rest of his career live up to the debut novel? Everything else will live in his own work's shadow.

So don't go into The Fury expecting The Silent Patient, because you'll be setting yourself up for heartbreak. The Fury is great on its own merit. It's a fantastic locked room mystery. With an unreliable narrator, a litany of flawed characters, and twist after twist, I couldn't put this story down. There are loads of theater references, which as a theater girlie myself, I enjoyed tremendously.

Thank you Celadon and NetGalley for this advanced copy!

What begins as a meandering tale with a narrator (a man named Elliot) in no hurry, laying out details of this whydunit of a murder of the famous actress, Lana on a small island with a small group of suspects of friend, family, and employees. It jumps between the present to recent past and even further back to childhood. Which one of them could have done the dirty deed? Or was it more than one? Mayhap it was the friend having an affair with Lana's husband? Or was it Jason so that he can get the money to get out of his financial troubles. The suspects all have good reasons to want Lana gone.

It is an enjoyable meander as all the characters and their motives and secrets are laid bare. Then it does a twist and you think you might have figured it all out but then it goes and turns head over heels in another directions leaving the reader going what? what? what! It was so much fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it!