Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Title: Fury (The Fury Trilogy #1)

Author: Elizabeth Miles

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Release Date: August 31, 2011

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

It’s winter break in Ascension, Maine. The snow is falling and everything looks pristine and peaceful. But not all is as it seems...

Between cozy traditions and parties with her friends, Emily loves the holidays. And this year’s even better--the guy she’s been into for months is finally noticing her. But Em knows if she starts things with him, there’s no turning back. Because his girlfriend is Em’s best friend.

On the other side of town, Chase is having problems of his own. The stress of his home life is starting to take its toll, and his social life is unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. Chase has done something cruel...something the perfect guy he pretends to be would never do. And it’s only a matter of time before he’s exposed.

In Ascension, mistakes can be deadly. And three girls--three beautiful, mysterious girls--are here to choose who will pay.

Em and Chase have been chosen.

Even though it’s not releasing the until the end of August, Fury has already been getting a lot of hype. It was a very enjoyable book and in this sense lives up to the hype but at the same time it left me slightly confused. I really liked the book and highly enjoyed reading it but I expected more from it. 

The holiday season in Ascension, Maine usually means snow covering everything, parties and games of ice hoops. Emily has always loved the holiday season and this year it is looking even better than in the past. The boy she’s been crushing on for the longest time seems to be returning her feelings. But there is one problem, Zach also happens to be Em’s best friend’s boyfriend. Though that doesn’t seem to be stopping either one of them. Chase always has to try harder than everyone else because of where he comes from. Like everyone else he has secrets but Chase wants to keep those hidden more than anything else. But when strange things start happening in town, Em and Chase realize that something else might be at play and they may be in more danger than they ever realized. 

Fury was by all means a great book but one that left me more than a little confused. If I’m completely honest, it took me a while to get into the story and it was a little slow to start, but I think that mostly came from the fact that until about halfway through I didn’t really know what was going on. One thing I can say is that Elizabeth Miles’s writing was great. Even though at times I really didn’t know whether or not I should keep reading, her writing is what kept me going because it captivated me completely. And once the story started to pick up it really had me interested, though I wish it wouldn’t have taken that long to get there. On the whole the concept of the Furies was very interesting, though it would have been nice to find out more about them, or even to have some of the chapters told from their point of view. And the ending definitely left the door open for a sequel that has the potential to be even better than the first book. 

I can’t really say that I really liked Emily and Chase, which I guess was kind of the point. They weren’t all bad and even had some redeeming qualities. With Emily, you could tell that she fell bad about what was happening with her and Zach and that she really didn’t want to hurt Gabby. As for Chase, he fell guilty for what happened to his former childhood friend and it sort of ate at him. The one character that I actually really liked was JD. He was a genuinely good guy and you could really tell how much he cared about Emily, despite the fact that she was completely blind to it. I wish I could have seen more of him throughout the book, but based on the ending, I’m sure he’ll be a more important character in book two. As I said above, I wish I could have seen the Furies more and gotten more information about them. What would have been really interesting was to have some parts of the story told from their point of view that way I could have really understood them more. But maybe that will happen in the next book. 

Overall, Fury was a really enjoyable read and set the stage for book two. While I expected more from the book, I was still really able to appreciate it and I look forward to being able to read book two and see where Elizabeth Miles is going to take the story of the Furies.