A group of friends trapped on a Greek island; an affair, old friendships, and a murder.

The best part of this book was the narration. I really enjoyed the narrator and how he was telling the story. There were quite a few twists. It was a very unique and unusual story that I wasn’t expecting. Anyone who is a fan of drama and theater will enjoy this one.

“It’s a tale of beautiful, well-intentioned failure - ending in death. Which is a pretty good metaphor for life, isn’t it? Well - my life, anyway.”

The Fury comes out 1/16.

Elliot Chase, the narrator, has a story to tell us about a murder…or maybe it’s a love story. It’s hard to say. Lana is a beautiful actress who owns Aura, a remote island where the murder takes place. She brings her son Leo, her husband Jason, Kate and Elliott (two of her friends), and Agathi who she employs. Nikos lives on the island, taking care of the house, so he’s there too. Lots (and lots) of backstory and scene setting happens, and then there is a murder...but it doesn’t turn out quite the way you think it would. I was constantly questioning what parts of the story were real and what wasn't, which kept me interested and engaged throughout the entire book.

Full of drama and short chapters, The Fury was hard to put down. I really enjoyed this one!

Note: Don’t read this one if you haven’t read the Silent Patient and plan to - it contains a pretty big spoiler.

Thank you to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advance review copy!

If you go into this hoping for a light who-dun-it set on a beautiful Greek island, you may be disappointed. This is a tightly written twisty look into ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves (set on that beautiful Greek island). The prose is lovely and Michaelides has really hit his stride.

The narrator made the book an absolute page turner. I'll be honest and say that for the first act, I wasn't sure that I liked the style of the narration - there is a lot of talking to the reader - but as I read I realized that this was all part of Michaelides's brilliant plan.

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon for giving me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

"The Fury" by Alex Michaelides unfolds as an irresistible and intriguing tale, following movie star Lana Farrar on a last-minute trip to her private Greek island. Trapped on this remote haven with her husband Jason, son Leo, and four close friends, resentments and jealousies build to a murderous climax.

Narrated in the first person by Lana's close friend, Elliot, the story employs an unreliable narrator who gradually unveils each character's secrets and backstories. Structured into five acts, this unique format adds an unusual layer to the thriller genre. As stormy winds intensify on the island, so does the tension, fueled by unreciprocated feelings, betrayal, and obsessions, creating an atmosphere of impending doom. Shocking twists throughout the narrative lead to an unforgettable ending.

"The Fury" is a suspenseful, disturbing, and fast-paced read, infused with a touch of glamour and Greek mythology. Michaelides' expert storytelling, combined with an unreliable narrator, offers a compelling exploration of love, revenge, and murder against the backdrop of a luxurious Greek island. For readers seeking a thrilling narrative with unique structural elements and unexpected twists, "The Fury" delivers an engaging and suspenseful experience.

Thank-you NetGalley for the advanced digital copy of The Fury by Alex Michaelides in return for my honest review..

I am a fan of Alex Michaelides. I especially loved his book The Silent Patient, which provided an ending I did not see coming. This is extraordinary for a person who is always reading. It is difficult to surprise an avid reader, but this author did it in the very best of ways. When a debut novel is so extraordinary, books that follow, which would be considered very good otherwise, suffer by comparison, and that’s what I think is happening for me with The Fury. The Fury is a very well-told, well-written story. It catches the reader’s attention and engages them from the first pages.

The opening informs the reader that this is a Why-Done-It not a Who-Done-It, and although I liked the idea of a Why-Done-It, the technique lost its flare as the story progressed. At a certain point, the reader gets tired of being fed bread crumbs and wants to get immersed in the story. I liked this book. I enjoyed reading this book, but it will not be remembered like The Silent Patient will be.

That being said, I will anxiously await Michaelides’ next book. I will read anything he writes. He is a talented writer with smart, interesting ideas. The author has a problem. His debut was just too good, and that’s not the worst problem to have.

The Fury was a highly addictive and impossible to put down. This isn't necessarily a fast paced thriller but it's deep the narrators keeps things really interesting as he tells the story. I enjoyed the slower pacing because the book took time to focus on backgrounds for the characters. I really feel like I got to know them by the end. The plot was really interesting and thanks to Elliot being quite an unreliable narrator, it was easy to make incorrect assumptions about what was going to happen. I loved the final plot twist as well. If you haven't added this to your tbr yet I highly recommend it for thriller fans.

Thank you to celadon books and netgalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

What an absolutely brilliant book! Would definitely recommend this novel! I am so excited for release day so I can obtain a physical copy! I need it as a trophy on my shelf for sure!!!

I want to start off by saying that I loved the Silent Patient - it was definitely a five-star read, The Maidens was a four-star read, and I was hoping The Fury was going to be a five-star read as well. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it. I love the fact that the chapters were short. I did not need to be told by Elliot that he was going to be an Unreliable Narrator because it was obvious from the start that that's what he was, and the beginning of the book really seemed to move slowly. This really surprised me as it's not what I come to expect from this author. I will say that the last third of the book moved a lot quicker and for those of you that have not read The Silent Patient, you may want to hold off on reading this book because there are major plot hints in this book with respect to that book. I did enjoy that it took place in Greece, again no surprise as the author is part Cypriot. All in all an enjoyable read and I do recommend it.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 stars
The Silent Patient was one of the books that originally ignited my love for thrillers, so when I saw Alex Michaelides had written another, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
The story is written in a personal prose, as if a friend was chatting with you over a beer. It made the book easy to read with a distinct narrative voice. More importantly, the framing of the story through this characters point of view is is clearly biased with his own opinions, and perceptions. He also is very aware of this, often breaking the fourth-wall to acknowledge his own deficits as a narrator. I liked this aspect, and liked getting to know the characters through his eyes, and see the story as his perspective unravels.

However, and sadly, the story itself was just okay. The pacing was a little all over the place, with a meandering beginning, and chaotically actionable end. I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t live up to my hopes.
I’d still recommend it for a fast paced mystery.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Fury releases January 16, 2024

This was a book I should have dnf’d.
I hated the writing style and the way this story was presented. The narrator repeatedly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader in such a slimy way and their voice comes across as so pretentious; insinuating that Agatha Christie novels are so formulaic that what will be told in the next couple hundred pages can’t possibly be a whodunnit, but rather <u>a whydunnit character study.</u>

The narrator strives to be impartial, yet is an active participant in the events, and also speaks as if they know all, which is literally impossible.

Before the murder mystery even begins, it’s stated:
<i>“Nonetheless, I’ll do my best not to hijack the narrative too often. Even so, I hope you’ll indulge me the odd digression, here and there. And before you accuse me of telling my story in a labyrinthine manner, let me remind you this is a true story—and in real life, that’s how we communicate, isn’t it? We’re all over the place: we jump back and forth in time; slow down and expand on some moments; fast-forward through others; editing as we go, minimizing flaws and maximizing assets. We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.
“I stress all this so that, if at any point during this narrative I mislead you, you will understand that it is by accident, not design—because I am clumsily skewing the events too much from my own point of view. An occupational hazard, perhaps, when one narrates a story in which one happens to play a minor role.”</I>

This just indicates to me that the structural prose and plot going forward will be a disjointed mess, and I’m ‘not allowed’ to negatively fault it because it was purposely done and stated beforehand… hmm nope. To me that just screams lazy writing and it’s giving “I don’t want to fix it so here’s a half-baked explanation from the character.”

Read if you like friend groups that involve marital cheating :)

This was incredible!!!! I ate this up like my favorite dinner, and loved every second of it. Alex Michaelides did it again!

Tight, economical pacing and witty banter propelled me to read it in basically 2 sittings, which makes it so hard to give "just" a four.

But I felt a lack of insight on WHY these wildly successful people tolerated THSI particular sycophant (the MC) that made the story feel a bit hollow. Oh yes, he tells us its because of their insecurity but he's not particularly charming, so absent more information on why THIS guy is chosen to bolster their ego, it rings a bit hollow.

I am fully aware that could have been an artistic choice given the MC may be projecting his own flat emotionality onto the other characters. He's barely human, so he'd not recognize humanity in others. There's evidence of this with his black /white /zero sum thinking.

It's very provocative and well worth the read, though! I love a book that makes me think about it after the fact. It's at the very least worth trying the sample!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I was excited for this book because I loved a previous book by this author, The Silent Patient! I really like how this author includes Greek mythology and stories in his novels.

I mainly did audio with this one. While I didn't particularly like the narrator, I liked that narration really fit the storyline, which is essentially a story being told to the reader and I would recommend this route.

Overall, this is a slow read. I found my attention waning at moments and the format lent itself to a lot of telling rather than showing. The descriptions were basic and mostly lacked sensory details, which made for a somewhat flat read, but I did like the mystery element. Also, I love the cover!

I woke up to an email saying I got this as an ARC and then immeidately devoured this book in one sitting. Let me just say this is one of three of my most anticipated reads of 2024 so it really was an early Christmas gift to me!

Okay, one more thing, The Silent Patient (his debut novel and probably the one people are most familiar with) is a 5 star read and got me back into reading. For that reason, any of his other work is hard to give a fair rating to as I am always comparing it to the debut. This goes for other thrillers as well.

If I hadn't read The Silent Patient, this would probably be a 4.5 star read for me as there were a lot of twists and turns. None of the characters were particularly likeable. They all seemed like they had their own hidden agendas and I genuinely would not want to be friends with a single one of them. However, having read the Silent Patient, I am giving it a solid 3.5-4 stars. I think we saw a little bit of some of the tropes we got in his debut (can't say what it was without spoiling either book).

The pacing here was a bit off as the murder didn't happen until almost 100 pages in and we were getting present and past points of view, though the chapters weren't labeled as such. That said, it wasn't at all confusing and easy to follow.

One thing, if you're going to plot a murder, maybe don't write it down?? Just a thought?? Or maybe if you do, burn it immediately?? Idk that seemed like too easy...

I do think this is an excellent thriller and this author clearly has talent. I won't lie, I was hoping to see some connection to The Silent Patient as we did with his second book, the Maiden.

Overall, I would rank this author's work as such:
The Silent Patient - 5 Stars
The Maiden - 4 stars
The Fury 3.5-4 stars

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you to Net Galley and Celadon Books for this advanced copy of The Fury by Alex Michaelides to be published January 16, 2024.

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends – Kate and Elliot, along with her husband, Jason, and her cook, Agathi, to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island left to her by her first husband, Otto. The caretaker, Nikos, is already there.
It's not an ordinary vacation this year – with many twists and turns, and someone ends up murdered. Either an intruder did it or one of her invited friends.
I had read Alex Michaelides The Silent Patient so I was looking forward to reading this one.
The story is told by Elliot with the murder being the first section and the backstory after that in several parts bringing out each character, how they met, etc.
I will say I was surprised by the ending – since many of the players in the story are actors things aren’t always as they seem. The Fury kept my attention until the end – I loved it!

The Fury is a significant step up from Michaelides' second novel, but fails to reach the heights of his debut. While there were some incredible twists in the final third of the novel, the first two thirds are some of the slowest I have read in a thriller. This novel requires patience from the reader, but I would say that it ultimately does pay off.

I still don't know how i feel about this one. Moments I really liked it. Moments I was so frustrated with it. I did like how it was narrated. I loveddd the short chapters. It's a slowwww burn which I don't really enjoy. The twist was dumb to me.

Thank you to Celadon Books for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have no words!!!!!! Holy fucking shit balls, dude!!! If this doesn’t win thriller of the year in 2024, I will truly be shocked. The writing and narration were incredible. There were so many twists and turns; every time I thought I knew where the story was going, I was completely bamboozled. All of the characters had something to hide, which made it truly difficult for this reader to form hypotheses as to the central murder of the story. I could tell this must have been an extremely challenging book to write. Endless applause for Alex Michaelides! WOW.

Bonus: I haven’t read The Maidens yet, but there was a Silent Patient nugget at the end! 🥚 How fun for Michaelides’s avid readers.

I was so excited to be able to read Alex's newest novel as his previous 2 books both were incredible. Sadly, I was dissapointed in how scattered the plot was in this one and now little I cared about the characters.

This book was.. holy wow. I had no idea about the twists and turns that this book was going to take. I found the narration to be super satisfying actually, as I love unreliable narrators and this was a great example of that. I loved that the storyline was pretty simple but the author made it seem complex. I thought that the setting was perfect for the stage that needed to be set and I was on the edge of my seat til the last page.