The Furies By Natalie Haynes

karen

i grabbed this from netgalley thinking it was going to be a
The Secret History kind of story, just because: teacher, troubled students, greek tragedies, "cruel fate and bloody revenge," yadda yadda. but it is a very different kind of story. not a bad thing at all, but if you are looking for
The Secret History knockoffs like i always am, know that this is not the same kind of narrative arc. there are troubled students, yes, and there will be crime, but it is a much narrower story than s.h. and its friends.

in this one, alex morris is a 26-year-old woman living in london whose fiancé has been killed. she cannot cope with her old life with its layer of new grief, so she leaves everything behind: her friends, her job, her possessions, and goes off to edinburgh, where she had studied theater in her youth. despite having no background in education - she is a successful up-and-coming theater director - she lands a job teaching dramatherapy at a school for children who have not been able to succeed in the traditional school system: bullies or the victims of bullies, troubled or dangerous, special needs or simply not academically-inclined. so - a grieving, distracted woman who is unqualified in both teaching and psychology, put in a windowless subterranean classroom with a bunch of volatile teenagers completely unsupervised… well, it goes better than it should with those ingredients-for-disaster, but it's definitely not what anyone would call a happy ending.

at least this guy had a leather jacket and a bat

although alex is responsible for several different classes of various age groups throughout the course of her day, only one class is given any page-time: the one with the most troubled five students in the whole school. alex's idea of teaching is to have them read greek tragedies on their own time and then come in and talk about the characters' motivations as a way to trick them into talking about their own feelings and driving forces; all the big things like love and loyalty, fate and revenge. naturally, some of the kids don't even bother reading the plays, and the classes are pretty formless and frequently devolve into fighting or storming out. this is not a stand and deliver inspirational teacher kind of book, where troubled kids make good, but alex manages to obtain a kind of grudging respect from them, and the very special regard of one student in particular, who develops an obsessive need to find out everything about alex - where she goes, what she does, what is at the root of her palpable sorrow.

and that's where it gets criminal.

so, rather than being a
The Secret History story of a charismatic teacher leading impressionable students astray, it's more of a "hey, maybe troubled kids should be taught by specialists and not just people who happen to know the director of a reform school" scenario. it's a perfectly entertaining book - it held my interest and i wanted to see how it was all going to end, but it isn't really a "mystery" nor is it even "psychological suspense." there's no escalating tension building to an unspeakable conclusion; it's a very measured and even restrained story. i do wish there had been more about the other classes she was teaching, just as a sort of contrast point, or even more about the students in the class that was the focus. i mean, there were only 5 kids - but we only know a very little about them, except for the one who gets all obsessive. it just seems a little uneven, and i would have appreciated a little more detail overall. but still - a strong debut novel, and i would read her next book with pleasure.

come to my blog!

Shelby *trains flying monkeys*

Alex has lost her fiance to a brutal killing. So when her friend Robert offers her a job in a new town away from the pain she is having living in London she takes the job. She starts working in Edinburgh in a school of troubled teenagers. The one class that stands out for her is her harder one. Five teenagers she sets out to make a difference too.
In the beginning the book reminded me quite a bit of the movie "Dangerous Minds". That's really not a bad thing since I enjoyed that movie.

She gets the kids interested in Greek tragedy's. I loved this part of the book. The author made me want to read all the works that she included in this book.

Then the book just faltered. It seemed like the second part of the book just wanted me to go to sleep.
Not a horrible book..just one I had a hard time finishing.

I did receive an arc copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

BrokenTune

We’re all responsible for our actions, and that includes me. In retrospect, I did everything wrong, almost from the moment I arrived in Edinburgh. I was weak, thoughtless and self-centred. I believed I was helping them, or at least I persuaded myself that I was. But the undeniable truth is that if I had made even the slightest effort to look outwards at these children, instead of inwards, I could have changed everything that happened. No-one was destined to die at this point.

Wow. Now, this book was not perfect and there are some aspects that made no sense, such as why an inexperienced teacher would be allowed to teach drama to teenagers with a history of violence without being given either their case files/histories or any training whatsoever on how to deal with certain behaviours or ensure security, is clearly beyond me. Or that the class never actually read any texts in class, which was really weird.

HOWEVER, this book made up for this in many other aspects.
The plot was fresh to me. I could not predict how this was going to go. The characters were fully fleshed out, and the characters' inner conflicts were really well portrayed.

What I loved best, tho, was that this story was not a re-telling of a Greek classic as the books blurb may have suggested. Instead, Haynes used the plot of Alex, a theatre director, teaching juvenile delinquents about Greek drama as a way to ask whether certain themes and issues addressed in Greek drama are still relevant today and how they would be assessed today.

I thought this book was, despite its light tone of voice, really quite complex and really though-provoking, and all the while Haynes built up a plot that would climax in something that we, as the reader, know is going to happen, but we don't know what this is and when it will occur.

The Amber Fury was smart and thrilling and I loved it. I certainly also want to read Haynes' other books.

Even if you have no control over your life, you should live like you have a choice.

Blair

(First read in 2014; reread January 2023.) The Amber Fury is a book I remembered fondly and have long considered a favourite, despite the fact that my review at the time – published on my now-defunct blog – contained quite a lot of criticism. It was an interesting one to reread. I have read many similar novels in the intervening years, and although I still like this book, it didn’t make the same impression on me second time around.

Reeling from the death of her fiancé, theatre director Alex Morris makes a snap decision to move from London back to to Edinburgh, where she went to university. She becomes a ‘dramatherapy’ teacher at the Unit, a service providing part-time education and therapeutic support to children who have been expelled or temporarily excluded from other schools. One of her assignments involves teaching Greek tragedies to a small group of 15-year-olds. Dazed by grief, Alex fails to recognise that her emotional involvement with this particular class is becoming problematic. References to a court case make it clear from the start that the situation ends badly. But for whom?

In 2014, I praised the book’s atmosphere; the story, which I found gripping; its sensitive handling of Alex’s grief; and particularly Alex as a character, writing that she’s ‘one of those fictional people you instantly wish you were best mates with’. I was critical of various implausible plot points, including the unlikeliness of Alex’s career trajectory for someone in their mid-twenties, the ‘curiously self-contained’ nature of the Unit, and a key legal revelation close to the end. I was also unenthusiastic about the story’s heavy focus on the teenage characters, finding this gave the whole thing too much of a YA feel for my liking.

Revisiting it in 2023, I’m inclined to agree with those criticisms, but am less enthusiastic about some of the things I (then) liked. I’m not quite sure what I found so appealing about Alex, who, this time, I experienced as a rather bland character. Some of her feelings and motivations are obscured in order to serve the plot, and this hampers her development. In fact, the diary entries written by Mel – one of Alex’s students – now read to me as by far the strongest part of the novel: she has a believable voice; her narrative pushes the plot forward while also articulating her personal experience of deafness effectively.

I found the second half of The Amber Fury much more compelling than the first. While certain developments are not very believable, Haynes’ articulation of Alex’s grief gets stronger, and we can see what drives her more clearly. Perhaps more of a 3.5 these days, then, but as so often with books I loved at some point, I retain a vestigial affection towards it.

Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell

Reasons to buy:
1. Only $2.99
2. Set in Scotland
3. Dark academia
4. Delinquency

Julia Ibbotson

I seem to be one of the very few who has not rated this book highly! I'm afraid that I can't give it 3 stars as I can't say that I liked it. There were too many flaws and irritations. The premise is that Alex, a successful theatre producer in London, flees back to her university town of Edinburgh after a tragic incident kills her fiancé Luke. The story is then woven around the aftermath of the killing; why is Alex apparently spying on someone and why is one of her pupils stalking her? The basic idea is good and the writing is evocative. However, as a former school teacher myself I find it odd that Alex would be allowed, without any teaching qualifications or previous experience, to teach vulnerable teenagers in a PRU (pupil referral unit, ie a unit which usually caters for pupils who are difficult or need special attention which cannot be provided in the normal school environment). This is because she is an old friend of the principal (odd rationale!). She then proceeds to select Greek tragedies for a literature class of fifteen year olds with histories of violence, abuse, challenging behaviour - a very dangerous choice for such a class. She then spends lessons discussing character and situation without apparently actually reading the text with them in class, but expecting them to do this for homework, which of course most of them don't do (surprise!). The issues she makes them discuss are contentious and unrealistic, and the long passages of dialogue presented as lessons, unconvincing. I felt that it was really the author's passion for Greek theatre which drove this novel rather than a real connection with the story she was weaving. I didn't find the denouement unexpected although it was flagged up as a mystery and the plot seemed to point to a surprising resolution. Disappointing, I'm afraid.

Liz Barnsley

First of all, I am not entirely sure myself why this particular novel captured my imagination the way it did – but it really really did.

The premise or rather construction of the story is not entirely new, but the way Natalie Haynes tells us the tale is imaginative, captivating and utterly engaging . We start the book knowing that a tragedy has occurred but not the details nor the specific players – as things unfold using diary entries, real time action and past flashbacks, it is compelling stuff.

Alex has suffered a terrible loss and wants to try and make a whole new life – when in an effort to engage some of the more difficult students at the Pupil Referral Unit where she teaches she decides to get them interesting in the Greek Tragedies, in her pain she is oblivious to the emotional affects these stories are having on them..

This is full of what I call “Gorgeous prose” where the story flows along taking you with it – Alex is a terrifically drawn character, grieving, angry and not really sure what to do with the rest of her life….she captures the hearts of some of the more intense and troubled students – but not necessarily in a good way.

Admittedly I do not know the source material very well – a situation I intend to rectify – but reading this it is actually quite amazing to see how relevant those dramatic and often horrific stories are to the emotions and thought processes of modern times…the themes of fate versus free will, vengeance versus forgiveness are weaved subtly into the plot and it is wonderful to behold.

Excellent read that did truly get to the heart of me – and a heads up, if you are lucky enough to have a copy with the added bonus of a short essay from Ms Haynes as an afterword talking about why the Greek Tragedies are perfect in conjunction with todays teenagers then make sure you give that a read when you are done.

Highly Recommended.

John

Promising young stage director Alex Morris is, not unnaturally, devastated by grief when her fiance, Luke, is murdered on the street by a stranger. Knowing how desperate she is to get away from London and all the reminders of what happened, her old drama tutor Robert offers her a job in Edinburgh using her secondary qualification in dramatherapy to help recalcitrant kids at a special-needs unit.

The most intimidating group put in her charge is a small class of teenagers, only five strong, whom she somehow manages to get interested in the classic Greek tragedies. Although progress tends to be a matter of one step forward, two steps back, the kids do seem to be responding to her work with them -- to the amazement of all concerned, not least Alex herself, who's still incapable of struggling free of her world-filling grief over Luke's death. What she doesn't realize until far too late is that one of the kids is taking the lessons of the Greek tragedies dangerously to heart . . .

The tale's told primarily by Alex herself, recounting both what happened during the months she was teaching at the Unit and what's going on now, as she confronts hostile and friendly lawyers because of some initially unspecified disaster. A secondary narrative strand comes from diary entries written by the most interesting and intelligent of the five kids, the deaf Mel (for Melody). Although I could fairly quickly work out the rough outlines of the disaster, Haynes kept me on the edge of my seat by the incredibly skillful way she slowly revealed a detail here and a detail there, as if I were seeing a picture at first only blurrily through misted glass but then the mist gradually evaporated.

The Amber Fury, retitled The Furies in the US, is not without its imperfections. Late in the book, Alex is being groomed to take over as director of the Unit when Robert retires, which seems hardly plausible bearing in mind she's barely qualified to be teaching there in the first place. There's a feel-good epilogue that I really, really could have done without -- it's like one of those dreadful happy endings producers insist directors tack on to movies because everyone knows we're all too infantile to cope with sadness.

But little blemishes like these are overwhelmingly outweighed by the novel's many merits -- not least the fact that it's an absolutely gripping read. Some of the best bits, for me at least, are the fairly lengthy discussions Alex has with the kids about the dramas they've been reading (or, kids being kids, quite often not reading). Although I'm aware in a general sort of way what the more famous of the Greek tragedies are about, I've never really given them much thought, far less actually read them. But Alex's enthusiasm for these writings (which I gather reflects the author's own), and the way she uses them to bring the kids out of themselves as well as, unwittingly, herself out of her blanket of grief, had me eager to learn more.

I'm not sure how to classify this novel in my own mental library. A couple of the cover quotes call it a "psychological mystery," which seems inapt, because there's no real mystery on offer, no attempt to deceive or misdirect, just the gradual unveiling of the reality of what happened. The term "psychological thriller" is more appropriate but at the same time really quite misleading, in that our central characters are never in any great danger beyond the hazards of spending time among problem kids who can turn violent on occasion. What makes the book spellbinding, what makes it thrill, is -- aside from the intellectual excitement offered by the discussions of the dramas -- the way that Haynes so effortlessly (or seemingly so!) draws us into Alex's and Mel's worlds, so we find ourselves living their characters.

I also loved the depiction of Edinburgh, where almost all of the novel is set. My mother spent the last thirty or so years of her life there, having fallen in love with the city (and my dad) during her time at Edinburgh University, so I got to know the place reasonably well during many family visits. A lot of the street scenery Haynes describes is familiar, but more importantly I think she caught the feel of the place, its weather (although I don't recall it being always that bad!), and the contrast between the Festival weeks, with all the Fringe lunacies, and the somewhat staider betweentimes. To be true, this isn't Ian Rankin's Edinburgh, stripped of its pretensions to reveal the sordid underbelly (or whatever), but it's certainly more than a superficial portrayal.

I see that Haynes has written a couple of further novels since this one, which was her debut. That's a nuisance, because on the strength of The Amber Fury I'm going to have to get hold of them . . .

Jill

Here’s my conundrum: how do I rate a book that had me eagerly turning pages well into the evening…and yet left me feeling curiously flat by the time I finished?

The Furies has a lot going for it. The first-person narrator, Alex Morris, flees from her former life as a theater director to take on the challenge of teaching dysfunctional kids in Edinburgh after the unfair death of her fiancée.

As a novice teacher, she gravitates toward her oldest class – two boys and three girls, all 15 years old. Her goal is to use drama therapy to help them “to find ways of talking about terrible emotions and difficulties, without focusing on their own lives all the time.” And unexpectedly, she begins to succeed. The teens –Ricky, Jono, Carly, Annika, and particularly Mel, an astute and intelligent deaf girl whose diaries punctuate the book – are inspired by the ancient tales of guilt, vengeance and self-discovery.

Ms. Haynes shines with these classroom vignettes, which capture the self-conscious, insecure and often raw nature of troubled teens. The reader, along with the students, will enjoy reconnecting with the Greek tragedies, which take on new life here.

Yet as the denouement neared, I was realized I felt distanced. As a reader, I knew that Alex was torn apart by her fiancée Luke’s death, yet I knew next to nothing about Luke (other than his profession) nor did I get a sense of them as a couple. As a result, I never had a visceral sense of what she lost.

I also had a hard time believing that Alex – merely 25 years old – had been a renowned theater director in London and that she was given the responsibility of challenged kids with no experience.

And the takeaway lesson began to get a little murky. Was it that “if society doesn’t punish the criminals, the gods do?” Or the difficulty of making choices when the only options are bad? Or perhaps, the enduring lessons of the Greek tragedies that hold sway over the years?

This is, indeed, a well-written, often psychologically astute book and I’m glad I read it, even with its perceived flaws. In the rating system, 3 stars means “it’s okay” and 4 stars means “I like it.” I’m at 3.5.

Brian

Published with an endorsement on the cover from S J Watson, The Amber Fury is being billed as a 'thriller' and a 'page-turner'. This seems to me to be an example of what happens when the marketing department is allowed too much influence in a book's categorisation. Yes, there is murder here - two murders in fact - but Natalie Haynes' fictional debut is really a novel of ideas.

Alex, a promising young theatre director, whose boyfriend was killed while intervening to protect a woman in a street brawl, moves to Edinburgh to start a new life and takes on a job teaching in a unit for children expelled from the regular state system.

She decides to teach her class of problematic fifteen-year-olds about Greek drama and in a series of distinctly improbable conversations that takes up most of the first hundred pages, they discuss plays plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.

The effect of considering all this heavyweight dramatic material laden with explosive themes such as guilt and sacrifice , destiny and revenge is that one of her dysfunctional students becomes obsessed with the tragedy that overtook Alex before her arrival in Edinburgh and decides to intervene in her life, with dreadful consequences.

This is really interesting and thought-provoking premise. I enjoyed reading the novel greatly and it certainly fulfilled one of the author's intentions in that it made me want to go back and re-read those Greek tragedies. I just think that to label it as a thriller does the author no favours whatsoever.

Ray

Alex teaches dramatherapy in a pupil referral unit in Edinburgh, whence she has recetly fled after a horrific incident at home in London. She finds the going tough but at least she can put the past behind her, or more accurately try to be so busy that it does not intrude.

The kids she teaches are from bleak backgrounds, troubled and easy to provoke to tantrums and violence. Alex brings her love of Greek classic plays to the classroom and slowly slowly the kids start to unwind. In particular a group of supposedly unteachable Year 5's (15 year olds).

Then real life intrudes and Greek tragedy comes to life in modern times. An interesting read.

Janet

Alex Morris’ fiancé was unexpectedly and brutally killed and she is drowning in grief. Barely coping, she moves to Edinburgh to make a fresh start. Her background is in theater and she takes a teaching job at Rankeillor Street, a place for children who have been kicked out of previous schools. She chooses to focus on Greek tragedies and she’s pleased with the result—at first. Only when it’s too late does she realize what has been unleashed by the volatile mixture of troubled teens and themes of vengeance, justice and fate. Riveting from beginning to end, with great pacing.

Sian Clark

It was definitely a gripping story and I enjoyed reading it. The writing was really good as is the Plot, I particularly enjoyed the Greek Tragedies that were taught within the novel. Characters are also of a high standard but they were a bit unlikable or shallow. Especially the main character Alex - I found her narration and backstory and just general personality a bit dry. As thrillers go I think it is definitely somewhat original But as a comparison to the secret history (which I have seen it compared to a couple of times) - it lacks the glamour and eccentric characters. But is a good novel I would recommend none the less.

Bill Kupersmith

I'd love to read Greek tragedy with Haynes. Apparently the American publishers think we Yanks are too stupid to catch the allusion in the original title The Amber Fury & changed it to The Furies.

When I read The Amber Fury last spring I loved it but there were several turns in the plot & character that eluded me & I put off writing a fuller review. Now that I’ve finished Tana French’s The Secret Place - another & even more wonderful story dealing with a tragedy in a contemporary school setting, I’m going to attempt to say more about Natalie Haynes’s fine book.

A favourite theme is the charismatic teacher who makes the subject taught - as well as the teacher - irresistible, turning students into imitators & followers. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is a striking example. Like The Secret History, The Amber Fury portrays what happens when one not only reads Greek tragedy, but tries to live it out in reality - full-throttle, no limit & no regrets. Unsurprisingly, the results are indeed tragic. Alex, our narrator, is a dramaturge & theatre director whose fiancé Luke was killed intervening to prevent a violent man from abusing his girlfriend; the man stabbed Luke instead, received a comparatively light sentence & the girlfriend returned to the abuser. Alex leaves London for Edinburgh where she is teaching Greek tragedy @ a kind of alternative school called the pupil referral unit (PRU) for troubled young persons. One of Alex’s students so identifies with Alex as to take on her unrequited grief. We are given that student’s thoughts in diary excerpts interspersed with Alex’s narrative. Even starts stalking Alex & following her on her mysterious day trips to London.

As with The Secret Place & Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, I did not want the story to end the way it did, but as in the best Greek tragedies, the denouement felt inevitable & right whilst simultaneously unjust & excessive. These are the contradictions tragedy is built upon. From the POV of myth, once the daimon or fury has been released (usually by a crime), destruction gathers momentum & spreads till the crime is finally expiated. Or, expressed in naturalistic language, there’s a level of intensity too high to sustain even for adolescents. But as long as it lasts, to live on that level is both beautiful & terrifying.

Alex remarks, ‘I finally see . . . that guilt & blame & responsibility aren’t the same things @ all. They’re not even close.’ The differences & contrasts between them are the aspects that most draw me to crime fiction & surely Greek tragedies are amongst the greatest crime fictions ever. I hope they continue to inspire Natalie Haynes.

Margaret Madden

Thanks to
http://www.lovereading.co.uk/ for the review copy of this book.......

Alex Morris has escaped to Edinburgh in order to forget her past. She finds herself helping a group of troubled teens who, for varied reasons, have been kicked out of mainstream schools. Through her teaching of Greek Tragedies and her interest in these forgotten children, she inspires them to look at life from a different perspective. When her past seeps into her present, things get out of control and Alex is oblivious to it all. Has the madness of the Greek Plays, with all their murder, mayhem and bizzare twists, inspired the class to change for the better or worse? And why does she now need a lawyer?

This debut novel is a high grade, stunningly written drama that will have you turning pages at great speed. Natalie has managed to link the infamous Greek Tragedies into everyday life, often without the reader being aware of it. The characters are strong and the descriptions of Edinburgh are fantastic. I could almost feel the dampness of the ground and feel the atmosphere as Alex walked familiar routes through the town.
The writing in this novel is beautiful. It almost glides off the page and reads like the work of an established author, with many awards under their belt. Outstanding debut which would make a great movie!

Renita D'Silva

Loved this book. Cleverly written, in sharp and fierce prose, this is an addictive read. Loved it.

Karen O

DNF after reading about a third of the book. Not the worst book in the world, but not what I was hoping for when I picked it up. Not for me.

Aubrie

I am reviewing this on my own accord after winning an Advanced Reader's Copy from Goodreads Giveaways. I am not being paid in any way to voice certain opinions of this book as this is an honest review written in my own words.

I found this book to be a major disappointment. It was definitely too predictable and not at all very climactic. Honestly, it could have had a lot of potential, but I put this book down after I was finished reading with great disappointment.

There are three storylines. There was the teacher's perspective from what appeared to be the present. Then there was the same teacher's perspective from the past leading up to the present so that they would merge together. Then there was the perspective in the form of writing from one of her students. It wasn't difficult to predict this entire story just based off of what these perspectives represented. However, I don't even think the storylines worked. They were awfully transitioned which made it a bit confusing, save for the student's perspective which was written all in italics. Even the dialogue used was confusing to read because whenever someone was talking, in the past perspective their lines only had 'single quote marks' on them. In the present perspective, there were no quote marks at all, so it made it difficult to single out who was even talking if they were talking at all. And the way the past led up to the present? I don't even think the present perspective or the written perspective should have been there at all because the extra two storylines made the whole story much too predictable.

The story starts off in the present perspective, where we find our main character teacher talking to lawyers about how some horrible incident occurred. So you know something horrible is going to happen right off the bat. Then we get to the past perspective where we find the main character in mourning, but we don't exactly know what she's mourning for, but this is where the story should have started out because we already know why she is in mourning since it's written all over the synopsis. Her fiance was murdered. The main character becomes a teacher for troubled children and tells them to keep a journal about their feelings.

This is where we get to the written perspective, told by only one of the student characters. How is it not obvious that the tragedy that's about to occur involves this child? This wasn't some detective story. Anyone could figure out that this child is about to ruin her teacher's life even more simply because her writings are the only ones being shown throughout this book. This perspective needed to be nixed, especially when she writes about stalking her teacher and finding her in the cafe where her fiance's murderer's girlfriend works every Friday afternoon. Why else would she be there unless it was to plot revenge against her fiance's murderer?

When you take into account that this woman is teaching these troubled children about Greek tragedy, it's completely obvious that her troubled student would take things literally and do something stupid, like stab the fiance of the man who stabbed her teacher's fiance. That's how Greek tragedy works. Put a troubled teen into the mix and you find yourself in a story of tragedy. Anyway, I still can't get over how predictable this book was and if it only stuck to just one storyline, it probably would have gotten a better review.

Secondly, less is more. There were other things that needed to be taken out. I'm sure to throw the audience off her scent, Natalie Haynes added theft into her story. I wasn't fooled. I knew the main student wouldn't steal from the teacher that she loved so much. Especially not a hoodie, which, if she was stalking her teacher, she wouldn't need. But Haynes wrote it so that it seemed like an extremely important plot line. No, it just annoyed me.

Then you get too much description. The characters didn't just take a right, take a left. They went between a strip of shopping centers, where in one window was a bunch of overly descriptive accessories that the character didn't even stop to look into, and in the building next to that one they were selling overly descriptive pastries that the character didn't even buy to eat, but on the other side of the street was an overly descriptive building towering over some overly descriptive sidewalk that the character wasn't even walking on. You get the picture.

This book had a lot of potential, I think. It could have been a great book, but what it needed first was a lot of change.

Wendi

My goodness, I've seen some harsh reviews out there for this novel.

Some say that it's far too predictable. I'd say that it appears to be so predictable because the who-does-it question isn't really so much the point of the novel. Granted, I recognized the identity of the Fury so early on - and you will, too, I assure you - that I thought there would be some sort of twist in that identification, but there wasn't. So when I saw these criticisms, they gave me pause to consider and I don't think there was ever really an intended mystery as to this element of the novel.

When St. Martin's Press offered The Furies up for early review, the synopsis was tailor-made for me. A mysteriously unrevealed death that happens before the opening scene, a creepy, moldy, violent schoolroom in the basement of an Edinburgh building, obsessions, secrets.

And I wasn't disappointed. I suppose if I felt the point of the book was the reveal of who commits the crime at the end, or if I was hoping for another Secret History, I might have been disappointed. But as it was, I enjoyed The Furies very much.

Although I read an advance reviewer's copy for the U.S., with the cover and title to the left, here, I was actually quite put off by the cover. Seems a bit too bright and cheery for Edinburgh, for this novel. It just doesn't convey the way the novel felt to me.

The cover and title, above, however, felt much more appropriate to the story (and I simply like the aesthetic better, as well). (The next sentence may be a minor spoiler....) The entire title, The Amber Fury, is much better suited to the novel, both with Amber, and also Fury (singular); Fury being a Greek mythological female spirit of justice and vengeance, known especially for pursing people who had murdered family members.

I loved the way Haynes incorporated the Greek myths and trilogies in the story and found the discussions about them with the students to be interesting and considered.

I related deeply to her representation of grief. I adored the way she characterized the lawyer, Lisa Meyer.

"Arthritis won't kill you, it only makes you weaker. What if grief works the same way?"

"If I could go back in time, I wouldn't do any of it. I'd just stand next to Luke every fucking second and when anything bad looked like it might happen to him, I'd get in the fucking way and I would keep him safe. And when people asked me what I did for a living, I'd say I loved him."

"But the corners were already peeling up from the bottom of each picture, as though the room were trying to rid itself of any signs of life."

"...I just said goodbye to her, awkwardly, giving her a small wave, because somehow goodbyes demand that we do something with our hands."

After reading this last line, I found myself trying to imagine saying goodbye to a friend in real life and not utilizing my hands, and it was difficult.

So... much of my reading life is experienced while waiting for the next Tana French. Don't get me wrong; I have other authors I just love and can't wait for their next book, but Tana French is the reigning queen for me. I was lucky enough to receive an advanced reader's copy of her newest book, The Secret Place, released next week (September 2, 2014). I must say that I was very tempted to drop everything else and just start Secret Place the moment it fell into my sweaty, greedy little hands, which would have included walking away from this book. But I liked this book very much, and I stayed with it, and was rewarded for doing so.

I related to the protagonist and appreciated the way she saw the world. Edinburgh was nicely represented, the teenagers seemed believable. What a promising debut!

Liz Barnsley

First of all, I am not entirely sure myself why this particular novel captured my imagination the way it did – but it really really did.

The premise or rather construction of the story is not entirely new, but the way Natalie Haynes tells us the tale is imaginative, captivating and utterly engaging . We start the book knowing that a tragedy has occurred but not the details nor the specific players – as things unfold using diary entries, real time action and past flashbacks, it is compelling stuff.

Alex has suffered a terrible loss and wants to try and make a whole new life – when in an effort to engage some of the more difficult students at the Pupil Referral Unit where she teaches she decides to get them interesting in the Greek Tragedies, in her pain she is oblivious to the emotional affects these stories are having on them..

This is full of what I call “Gorgeous prose” where the story flows along taking you with it – Alex is a terrifically drawn character, grieving, angry and not really sure what to do with the rest of her life….she captures the hearts of some of the more intense and troubled students – but not necessarily in a good way.

Admittedly I do not know the source material very well – a situation I intend to rectify – but reading this it is actually quite amazing to see how relevant those dramatic and often horrific stories are to the emotions and thought processes of modern times…the themes of fate versus free will, vengeance versus forgiveness are weaved subtly into the plot and it is wonderful to behold.

Excellent read that did truly get to the heart of me – and a heads up, if you are lucky enough to have a copy with the added bonus of a short essay from Ms Haynes as an afterword talking about why the Greek Tragedies are perfect in conjunction with todays teenagers then make sure you give that a read when you are done.

Highly Recommended.

M.L. Rio

This book was intensely disappointing (two stars is generous), probably because the description makes it sound so gripping. Unfortunately, the Greek tragedies which should be the bedrock of the story are so entirely incidental that even the title feels misleading. Instead of using the mythology to drive or even enrich the story, Haynes seems content to let her narrator summarize two or three plays in a manner so painfully reductive that it's as insulting to the reader as it is to Alex Morris's class of fifteen-year-olds, whose behavior doesn't actually seem that far out of line when one pauses to consider how disgustingly sad and patronizing their teacher is. And that's the real crux of the problem with this book: the defining trait of the narrator's personality is that she's monumentally boring. I've worked in the theatre for fifteen years and literally nothing about Alex Morris made me believe that she would have been a remotely promising or even competent director (as so many of the other characters are so eager to remind her). Yes, she's grieving, but she's so frightfully dull that it's difficult to care, and the matter in which she lost her husband-to-be so utterly random that it feels like narrative laziness. The fact that the story is so predictable it's verging on obvious doesn't help. At one point I actually said (out loud), "If this turns into a trite romatnic subplot I'll scream," and sure enough, fifteen pages later, I was screaming. What keeps this from being a one-star review (and it's not much) is Mel--who is an interesting character; had she narrated the whole story it might have been worth reading--and Haynes's sense of humor. Every now and then, there's a one-liner worth laughing at. But for anyone with a working knowledge of theatre, Greek tragedy, or really just books in general, this is a wholly unremarkable piece of work.

Mizuki

I think it's more of a 2.6 stars at best. It is a shame, for the writing is decent and the story starts off pretty much alright, the interaction between the young teacher who is running from her painful past and her troubled, misfit students, the drama classes they have are finely written enough.

However, everything changed after we realize *****slight plot spoiler*****the teacher's boyfriend was killed and that is the grief she tries to run from.......I have nothing against this plot point but..................what is this woman doing after her boyfriend's death? Quitting her job, her friends, her family and her boyfriend's family, abandoning her dreams and fleeing to Scotland for a teaching position because she can't deal with the grief?

I'm not saying the woman should deal with the tragic death of her lover with a huge ball of positive energy around her....but still...she has lost me when she failed to even show up at court to testify against her boyfriend's killer which

The ending is kinda, sorta okay too, still I can't say I enjoy this book much as a whole.

Tashia

(first-read) It's good but I felt myself getting bored at times. The best part of the book is the last 100 pages when things come together. A very memorable book.

Alexis Hall

This is kind of … meant to be a thriller, I think? It’s got a very portentous / titillating “oh bad things have happened and more bad things will happen and if only I had known” tone to it that I felt promised more than it actually delivered. The basic premise is that the grief-stricken narrator (we learn fairly early on her fiancé has been killed—in the sense of stabbed in the street, rather than this being any kind of mystery, although the details of it come out slowly) who used to be a promising theatre director but has moved to Edinburgh in order to take up a post at a semi-gothic though well-intentioned pupil referral centre. This is position she is no way qualified for but she gets due to the intervention / kindness / nepotism of an old university tutor. She apparently teaches more than one class, but the only one we’re invited to care about her is most troubling: five notably difficult students that she manages to partially engage by making them read Greek tragedy. Naturally they spend a lot of time talking about big themes like revenge and redemption and fate and self-sacrifice.

It’s kind of obvious where this as all going – the book opens by coyly promising a monstrous act – so the questions that remain are who and how and why. It’s quite a cheap device, but a compelling one, and I pretty much read the book in one sitting. I don’t have enough Ancient Greek points (not having received that kind of education) to be fully aware of the extent to which the book uses the devices of the plays it references to tell its own story, but there’s definitely an air of inevitable doom that felt all Greek tragedy to me.

But, in general, I found the whole thing a bit incoherent and ultimately tepid. The narrator’s sections are interspersed with excerpts from the diary of one of her students and I found these especially unconvincing—for me, the voice didn’t ring true, but I’m aware that’s a vague and wildly subjective comment to make. Similarly, I found this character pretty woolly—she was more a collection of traits around which a thriller could be built (obsessive! clever! alienated! potentially inclined to violence! maybe a lesbian!) than a fully put-together portrait of an actual person.

I was also kind of … expecting more twist, somehow. The narrator is this slightly grief-deadened, distant figure (even when she’s directly telling you stuff) so I was constantly assuming a degree of unreliability that may or may not have been there. And maybe that was the point but unreliable unreliability is one step too meta, even for someone who loves their meta as much as I do. The book consistently presents us with evidence that not only is the narrator’s judgement impaired (she tells us so repeatedly) but that her self-perception is distorted. She’s constantly insisting she’s doing a crap job and other people are constantly telling her she isn’t – I mean, to a degree that’s borderline annoying, because there’s nothing more frustrating than secondary characters who exist solely to insist on things about a protagonist that you yourself don’t ever witness. Also, having some experience of the issues involved around pupil referral units, I was inclined to feel she was, in fact, doing a crap job. So anyway, the upshot of all this unreliable unreliability was that I genuinely thought the narrator was going to have actively manipulated a vulnerable teenager into the “monstrous” act. And the narration itself was a further act of manipulation of the reader.

Except … no? This did genuinely seem to be the story of a grief-stricken woman who is the inadvertent recipient of a Grecian act of retributive violence enacted on her behalf by a teenager she has inspired by her teachin’.

Also in a mid-Brexit world I am not comfortable with portrayals of Eastern Europeans as wife-abusing thugs who murder nice white lawyers in the street

Juliet

This is one of those books where overzealous marketing created false expectations for people, and I suspect its sales suffered as a result. I've seen this book frequently compared to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and I can see why that comparison gets made. Both are set initially in classrooms where people talk about the Greeks--literature, plays, or philosophy--and then one or more of those students commits a murder. (As if somehow studying ancient Greek literature infects one suddenly with the urge to murder.) But the tone of this novel, its approach, the corner of humanity it is interested in is very different. Tartt's book is pretty lurid, delving into the ugliness that emerges when people uncap their social restraints--just how far will people go when they think the rules don't apply to them? Both sets of students are social misfits in a way, but where Tartt's are brilliant East Coast misanthropes--or at least they give a sly, drawling impression of such--these students by contrast are young, teen-agers, just figuring out who they want to be, who face an uphill battle because they've grown up in some kind of shit situation, they don't have the mental or emotional resources to deal with said shit, and they've acted out from their frustration, and now they're paying a price that will probably keep them in that shit for the rest of their lives. One of the key tenets of this novel is repeated at least twice: these kids don't want to be angry. They don't want to hit people or ruin what's left of their lives. They want someone to recognize them as human beings, to treat them with the understanding and fairness and honesty that everybody else gets. If someone's being false with them, they can smell it in an instant and be downright impossible right back. But that's not misanthropic. That's not killing somebody just to see if you can get away with it. This is about mistakes, and even when that mistake destroys the person you love most in the world and you don't think you will ever get over that loss, that immediate and complete destruction of a person's life, coming to understand that it still was, ultimately, a mistake that does not deserve vengeance. This is therefore a totally different book than Tartt's. Almost an opposite one, in fact. This book has far more heart and humanity and kindness.

So. If you picked this up expecting it to be like Tartt's novel and you were disappointed, I am sorry for you. You missed out on something decent.

(P.S. I love books about school, classrooms, when learning happens and when it sometimes doesn't. I loved the diary entries from Mel. Gave me lots of insight into what it's like to be deaf. Did I mention I love learning new things? I also liked roaming around Edinburgh, a city about which I know nothing. Only a couple things didn't sit right with me because they seemed like bait & switches. 1. You find out that the fiance didn't just die but was killed when you're about halfway into it. I don't see the point of hiding that information. If anything, revealing it sooner would have helped more with 2. which is She announces at some point fairly late in the book, after talking about how she was in such a depressed state, that she is in fact furious. I never really felt her fury. She told me she felt angry, she told me she wanted to kill someone who was kind of responsible, but I didn't really feel it. I felt the grief, the sorrow, the loss, the desperate helplessness that the dead whom we love can never come back and this is the great tragedy of life. But I did not feel her fury. And the turn she makes at the end would have been all the more powerful had that been more fully realized. But on the whole, I ate this book up. Devoured it. Very much enjoyed it. Thank you.)

Danya

The synopsis for this book reads like a thriller -- "But are these tales of cruel fate and bloody revenge teaching more than Alex ever intended? And who becomes responsible when these students take the tragedies to heart, and begin interweaving their darker lessons into real life with terrible and irrevocable fury?" -- but the actual book does not. It's way less dramatic and over-blown than that. What it does offer is an authentic portrait of loss and grief, as well as a realistic look at teaching teens who have been given up on by others. It reminded me of movies like The Freedom Writers and To Sir With Love. The most dramatic part of it -- because yes, there is a sort of "mystery" storyline -- was not as well developed as I would have liked; in a way it ends up cutting short the teaching storyline, which is a shame, because I was enjoying that one (although you know that it's coming, because the storyline moves around from present to past).

I really liked the protagonist Alex's voice; I thought she was a very relatable character, who'd been through a circumstance that few have and was understandably changed by it. The other main character whose POV we get, Mel, was a more oblique character, and even now I still have questions about her actions ().

The other element I was left feeling less than satisfied with was how the Greek myths tied into the storyline. I never studied them in school, so I felt pretty "in the dark" they were alluded to in this story; yes, the bare bones of each myth are provided, but the implications and connections to the contemporary storyline were lost on me (aside from general themes being echoed). I think I would have enjoyed a more thorough exploration of these myths in the classroom discussion scenes. Indeed, I would have appreciated more time spent with the other students whose POV we don't get (Annika, Jono, Ricky, and Carly), and more of a role for them in the ending. We don't get any resolution with these characters, which is a shame.

Anyway, I ended up reading a different story than I'd anticipated when I opened this book, but it was a well-written and worthwhile read that put me in a reflective mood.

Camilla Chester

Rare to find a book this good. I think the last one I enjoyed this much was Elizabeth is Missing. It was a perfect balance of good literary writing AND a great story. I'll definitely look for more titles by this author in the future.

Perfect tension and I loved how we jumped around in time in order for the story not to be given away too early.

If you want to know what it is about...well...I would say a gentle psychological thriller about a damaged teenage girl who becomes obsessed with a teacher and how the fantasy of the greek tragedies they are reading in class becomes blurred with her and her teacher's realities. Just ace. Loved it. Felt very real and believable.

Marilyn

Alex is Desperate to have a positive impact on her new charges, whilst knowingly avoiding acceptance of her tragic past.
Her five seniors are desperate for a voice and acceptance, searching for something so they can grow further from their traumatic past.

Beautiful language, characters strong and realistic, connecting attitudes snd feelings from Greek mythology with modern day. This is a very sad, lonely and, in many ways, upsetting novel, yet I couldn’t stop reading, It was Hypnotic.

This book does for Greek mythology what Leonardo and Kate did for Shakespeare, can’t wait to read more of her work.

5 stars

MD

I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. While it tries to build up suspense about what tragic event will unfold and who among the students perpetrates it, it is nonetheless engaging. The characters are unexpectedly relatable, even if at times their relationships to each other seem rather vague.

I am sure I will read more of Ms. Haynes' work. She has managed to pique my interest; I am intrigued by where her other books are headed.

Justin

I thought this was really good. It was a fast read, with interesting and sympathetically written characters, and with a relatively straightforward plot - yet a plot that was delivered in a really effective way, as different plot developments were revealed, which made it quite hard to put down until it was all pieced together. The themes included fate and revenge, channelling ancient Greek tragedies. I also liked learning about ancient Greek drama as the characters discussed them. Joss Whedon was right.

Title	:	The Furies
Author	:	Natalie Haynes
Rating	:
ISBN	:	1250048001
ISBN-10	:	9781250048004
Language	:	English
Format Type	:	Hardcover
Number of Pages	:	297
Publication	:	First published August 26, 2014

The Furies by Natalie Haynes

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