The Furies
By Katie Lowe
Published by Harpercollins
Available from May in hardback

Katie Lowe's thrilling debut novel, The Furies delves into the darkness of adolescence full of toxic friendships, poisonous situations and witchcraft. Think of Donna Tartt's The Secret History but set in a creepy private school in an English rundown seaside town in the 90s.

Violet, an unreliable narrator who is now telling the story from a distanced, adult perspective, looks back at her teenage self when she was full of grief and isolated from her friends, her life, her mother after the death of her little sister and father in a car crash. Violet, the only survivor, is numb and her mother withdraws from her, spending her days on the sofa. An insurance payout allows her to attend a private school, Elm Hollow, just a bus ride away, giving her an escape from her past, and from her present. At school, she can reinvent herself, hide away from her grief. Nobody will know the secret she carries.

Pulled into the clique of three other girls, introducing her to an exclusive study group, cigarettes, drugs and older boys. She won't listen to the warnings to stay away from the rebellious girls. Katie Lowe builds up the tension as the girls become tangled up in witchcraft and spells. Their friendship starts to spiral out of control as they seek out to avenge the people who have hurt them. Tension pulls the reader into their world, and you know there is something sinister lurking just out of sight.

The girls want to be heard, want to be respected. They will get what they want by using their sexuality and witchcraft. There are power struggles within themselves to shed their childish ways and become an adult, to struggles against men as they take a stand against the college boys and male teacher who wrong them. Their bond holds them together as they become more powerful after every struggle for power.

The Furies is available from the 2nd May but you can pre-order now and you'll love this book if you're a fan of The Secret History and The Virgin Suicides. This is a dark thriller full of sinister power struggles and good girls turned bad. This will make a great bank holiday read.

I was sent an ebook version via Netgalley.

A year after a terrible family tragedy Violet takes up a place at a prestigious school for girls, Elm Hollow Academy, whose pupils often go on to do great things. The school has a dark history with links to witchcraft and the 17th century witch trials. Violet soon falls in with a clique of three other girls who lost one of their friends in mysterious circumstances a year earlier. The school specialises in art and literature studies and when Violet catches the eye of one of the tutors, Annabel, Violet is invited to join an exclusive, secret group where her studies delve deeper into the meanings behind art and mythology and the history of the school. What follows is a dangerous story of intense and destructive female friendship, murder and revenge. And perhaps a little witchcraft.

This isn't the most original story, particularly the first half, and many readers may recognise scenes and scenarios from various other books and movies. What I did find very effective and original was the English seaside setting. Descriptions of the grubby, rundown town and often bad weather added a lot to the story, giving it very atmospheric, dark and slightly menacing feel. And the ending is very effective.

I had a couple of other small niggles with this book. The fact that the girls were studying and/or up to various shenanigans at school until late in the evening was very unbelievable and for a while I was under the (wrong) impression that it was a boarding school, especially with the exclusive reputation and general grandeur of the place. Also, although I found Annabel's lectures about art, literature and mythology really interesting at times, these occasionally became too long and rambling and distracted from the actual story.

So, despite my few little moans and groans, I did like this book, just not quite as much as I'd hoped to.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

First, the cover is absolutely gorgeous! One of my favourite cover designs this year, hands down!

This book is definitely more The Craft and less The Secret History; the level of it is more teen witch summer read than high literature. If the characters had been more deeply developed, perhaps it would have hit that level. I felt the characterisation was light and predictable. This made it difficult to really care what happened to any of the girls. That said, I love a good coven, if that is what these girls actually are.

It felt a bit like the author started with a few scenes in her head, like a dead girl in a tree and the secret room with the mysterious, witchy teacher (who should have been fired ages ago, to be honest), and was trying to wrap a story around it. A lot of the scenes felt pulled from teen fiction, which I love so I didn't mind, but could put some readers off.

It was a decent read but certainly didn't meet my expectations given the blurb and promotion.

Literally can not wait to read more from this author. big things are happening. Very "The craft" like in the teen witch path these teens follow through the course of the book. the story unfolds well and is well paced.

In 1998 a sixteen year old girl is found dead on school property, dressed in white and placed on a swing, with no known cause of death. Violet, looking back on the night it happened from the present day, before returning to relate the series of events leading up,to the girls murder. After an accident involving her dad and sister, Violet joins Elm Hollow Academy, a private girls school in a quiet coastal town, which has an unpleasant history as the site of famous 17th century witch trials. Violet becomes the fourth member of an advanced study group.

Sixteen year old Violet was the only survivor of a car crash that killed her father and sister. She goes to Elm Hollow Academy, a private school for girls, to study for her A levels. She soon meets and becomes friends with Alex, Grace and Robin. The Academy has a history of witchcraft. The girls take extra classes with the art teacher, Annabel, who teaches a few students about art, literature and mythology. The history of Elm Hollow Academy is a place where witches were burnt at the stake. I did not like any of the characters in this story.

I would like to thank NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and the author Katie Lowe for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am teetering somewhere between 4 and 4.5 stars with this one, for reasons I will explain, but I feel as bewitched (fitting) by this book now as I did by its premise when I first came across it.

Everything about teenager Violet's world is tinged with grey. She lives in a run-down seaside town somewhere in England. Her father and younger sister were recently killed in a car crash, from which Violet emerged as the only survivor. In the accident's aftermath, Violet's mother has withdrawn into a state of grief and numbness, barely able to function, let alone look after Violet. The atmosphere in the house is melancholy and dark, filthy and silent.

An insurance settlement provides Violet with the opportunity to attend a prestigious private girls' school, Elm Hollow Academy. The school is located on the historical site of witch trials where an accused witch was burned in the 17th century. Adding to the school's dark and mysterious allure, a current Elm Hollow student, Emily Frost, has disappeared and is still missing. The backdrop of the school's history and the descriptions of the physical campus set the scene for this eerie and intriguing story and I was immediately drawn into it.

Despite her tendency to isolate herself and indulge in her feelings of loneliness, Violet makes the acquaintance of grungy, confident and carefree Robin, who introduces Violet to the rest of her clique: quiet Grace and aloof Alex. Our protagonist is led to experiment with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and older boys, and as her 'pledging' to the small girl-pack intensifies, she learns about witchcraft, going on to secure a spot in a secret and exclusive study group fronted by Annabel, a charismatic and alluring art teacher at Elm Hollow. After a series of events, with her friendships intensifying to the point where she feels trapped, Violet begins to doubt everyone around her as well as lose her own grasp on reality.

You might be thinking you've read this story before, right? It feels like a combination of Donna Tartt's The Secret History and spooky thriller "The Craft", with a little hint of the highschool clique-culture of "Mean Girls" thrown in for good measure. This is initially why I was drawn to The Furies; I have a weakness for these kind of female-friendship-led thrillers. However, this novel surprised me with its differences and its uniqueness. The creepy premise is wonderful and if the witchcraft element and disappearance of Emily Frost wasn't enough, the book opens with an unforgettable image of a dead girl found on the grounds of Elm Hollow, dressed all in white and propped on a swing. Violet, now an adult, is looking back on this scene and the night it happened from the present day, before going back in time to relate the events leading up to the murder, beginning with her enrollment in her new school.

The story itself is engrossing - in fact, it led me to do some research on witchcraft in the U.K., my assumption being that witch trials were rooted only in the history of Salem and the U.S. The concept is rich and dark, and is brought to life so well by the author. I particularly enjoyed the evocation of the unlovely setting: the sketch of a bleak, crumbling, dilapidated and neglected town, "caked in bird shit and graffiti", "the kind of place people came to die". The characters feel authentic, with Violet, especially, emerging as vivid and engaging. Despite her tendency to fall within the realm of unreliable narrator - is our narrator remembering correctly or merely presenting the traumatising imaginings of a teenage girl, present-day Violet serves as a crucial adult perspective to help us make sense of the past and put us back on track.

This novel can be commended for its projection of teenage life and teenage insecurities, which doesn't come as a shock given Katie Lowe's background as an academic and the founder of the Fat Girl PhD blog, through which she writes about health, feminism and body image. The prose is alive with the energy and liberty of adolescence, while also being smeared with the uncertainty, nastiness and grime of it all. And, while the prose can come across as a little overdone at times, the elaborate word play and use of similes and imagery serve to emphasise the visceral and surreal nature of the story. With undercurrents of dread and decay, the atmosphere of this novel reminded me of that of Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.

Despite the sometimes blown-out prose and a brief and fleeting moment in the middle where it seemed like the narrative was going to lull, The Furies is a riveting story of dark magic, obsessive friendship, teenage life and murder. It is dripping with atmosphere and intrigue. I got lost in it from the first page and felt both repulsed and consumed by it. I expect this will be received as a triumphant debut. Bravo, Ms Lowe. (Let's call it 4.5 stars, then.)

I liked this book as much as I was expecting to. So many twists and turns and it had me wired from start to finish.

I really struggled with this. I didn’t really empathise with Violet, or understand why she was so compelled by Robin, Alex and Grace. Nicky was frustratingly peripheral and could have been a much more richly drawn character, as could Annabel.

Maybe I’m not the target audience, but this one wasn’t for me, and the ending left me with more questions than answers.

I loved the opening and start of this book. I really enjoyed the description throughout and it's very well written from a narrative/plot point of view. It's the characters and dialogue that aren't quite right. The gang of creepy girls is supposed to draw us in, but the three of them are immensely irritating and the best friend, Robin is fairly sociopathic, but not in a cool way. I couldn't see why on earth the main character would want to be friends with her. The dialogue is quite clunky and there are attempts at quips, but they fall short - it feels awks and not the conversation of 17/18 year olds. They sound much more adult.

There are lots of novel with similar themes to this. An elite school, strange cliques of girls, and, as we know from the beginning, a death. It has been done before, but I have a weakness for novels about schools, female friendships and so those words do pull me in, however hard I try to resist.

It feels to Violet as though her life is put on hold after the death of her father, and sister, in an accident. Her mother seems unable to move beyond her grief and, taking advantage of her disinterest, she opts out of school. Take your time, everyone says, until, finally, her mother suggests that she use the money they received after the accident to attend Elm Hollow Academy – a prestigious, artistic school.

Without really realising it, Violet is lonely and is soon attracted by the unconventional, carefree and confident Robin. She can hardly believe it when she is included in the small group – Robin, Grace and Alex, and – as there so often is in these novels – teacher, Annabel. There are warnings; word of a girl, previously included in Robin’s group, who mysteriously disappeared, but Violet doesn’t take it too seriously.

This novel has interesting characters, a slightly creepy premise, and is well written. Yes, there are other books that cover similar ground, but if you do like crime novels with intense female friendships –especially those set in a school – then you will enjoy this. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

The Furies is a very well written and eventful story but for some reason I struggled to really engage with it. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood. Violet, even while recounting some very painful and intense experiences, felt strangely detached, and by extension so did I. By the end, I was trying to get my head around everything that had happened and why - I’m still not sure I fully understood it all. And I’m still not sure how a girl manages to die while seated on a swing and not immediately fall off.

I think a lot of people will love this book and I did enjoy reading it, but somehow it never quite pulled me in to the extent I hoped it would. That said, the author does a good job of depicting the febrile, dangerous world of these teenage girls and the character of Robin, in particular, is very well done.

I raced through this book in a kind of surreal haze, coming up for air at the end and questioning what did I just read?! This is a dark, twisted whirlwind ride through adolescence filled with toxic friendships, a touch of witchcraft and murder. I loved it.

In a dilapidated British seaside town we meet 16-year-old Violet, only survivor of a car accident with her father and sister. With the settlement money, her mother elects to send Violet to elite private girl’s school Elm Hollow Academy on the edge of town. It’s there that Violet meets Robin, Alex and Grace, her first real friends, and is drawn into a decades old secret society; a history of myths and legends, powerful women and dark rituals.

Whilst there’s an element of this novel which focuses on the past; the creepy history of Elm Hollow as a place where witches were burnt at the stake and the society of women which has existed since the school’s inception, it also looks very contemporary issues in young friendships today, exploring themes of obsession, feminism and revenge. Violet is desperate for approval and quickly drawn into Robin’s wild lifestyle complete with drink, drugs, older boys – and witchcraft.

“We were close to the divine. we touched gods, felt them flow through our veins. Felt lust, envy, greed quicken our hearts – but for a while, we were truly, spectacularly alive.”

The writing is stunning; beautifully atmospheric and compelling as the author paints a vivid picture of the girls’ lives and environment; the derelict town juxtaposed with the grand, imposing school. It’s perhaps a little too flowery at times so it might not be for everyone – but for me it fits with our narrator, Violet’s voice and how she romanticises that period in her life.

“Though I have loved, and been loved, in the decades since we met, no infatuation could compare to the outrageous intensity of those first weeks with Robin.”

There’s a lot more I could say about this book and the issues it explores, but putting all that aside it’s also an excellent, compulsive thriller which had me racing through the pages. An great read; gripping, gothic, atmospheric and thought-provoking. I’m excited to see what this author does next.

After the death of her father and sister in a car crash from which she was the only survivor, Valerie is starting over at Elm Hollow Academy, a private girls' school with a mysterious past. The history of Elm Hollow intertwines with 17th century witch trials and, far more recently, the disappearance of a student who was part of a secret society that Violet now finds herself invited to. Along with her new friends, Robin, Alex, and Grace, Violet meets their teacher, Annabel, in a secret part of the school each week to learn about women of art, literature, and history, including the school's own rumoured history of witchcraft that Annabel swears isn't real.

As Violet becomes entangled with her new friends, she starts to wonder about the girl they knew before, the one who went missing, who was Robin's best friend before Violet, and who apparently even looked a little like Violet. Robin envelopes Violet in her world of drinking, taking drugs, and spending time with older, university boys, and when this new world turns on Violet, Robin promises to make it right, using one of the rituals Annabel swore would never work. Violet falls further into the dark world that her new friends inhabit, tumbling deeper and deeper into the darkness, folding herself more and more into their group, until a body is found. Then, suddenly, Violet finds herself jealous of a dead girl, and unsure whether she can trust the friends she has become so linked to, after all.

The Furies is a dark, chilling tale of the intense friendships teenage girls can form and how that intensity can go horribly wrong. Annabel's lessons are meant to help the girls find a kind of power, but the power they try to harness is not the kind that Annabel intended. The novel is told from the perspective of Violet, older, looking back on the events of her teenage years, and it starts with the image of a dead girl on a swing. This vein of horror and decay permeates throughout the story, in the descriptions of the rundown seaside town surrounding Elm Hollow, in Violet's own home, where her mother has left her sister's bedroom exactly as it was the day she died, and even in Violet's interactions with her friends, shrouded in the smoke of cigarettes and pot, and flooded with wine.

This is a slow burn of a book, things take their time to come to fruition, but this works to give the sense of unease time to truly build. The girls' exploration into witchcraft and the myth of The Furies of ancient Greece being summoned to the school weave seamlessly into the almost claustrophobic friendship between the four girls, and make it all the more powerful that the true horrors in the story are not fantastical at all, but very human, and very real. Lowe's writing is extremely atmospheric, her descriptions enough to make anyone's skin crawl. The Furies is a dark and obsessive novel, perfect for fans of The Graces by Laure Eve, but who want something even darker than that.

I think the concept of this book is interesting which is why I requested digital download access. However, I honestly could not get into the book. I didn't like the main character and I didn't understand why she was so obsessed with her friend, Robin. I truly only made it to 25% completed before another book on my TBR caught my attention and I haven't felt the desire to finish the book. I have heard good things about this book though, it is all over my Twitter, maybe one day I'll dip back into it, but right now it will remain unfinished due to unlikeability of the main character and many of the secondary characters. It should be said that by 20% finished, I should have been hooked by the storyline, however, I was not.

An enjoyable debut novel from Kate Lowe.
Following a family tragedy, we meet Violet as she enters Elm Hollow private girls school. Here she meets the enthralling Robin, and becomes entwined in the school's dark history.
The writing and imagery in the Furies is beautiful and captures the sometimes toxic and manipulative nature of teenage friendships and the lengths one goes to, to fit in and please others. I flew through this book in two nights and while the middle third stumbled a bit pace wise, I enjoyed the book overall. It is an appealing, alternative YA novel for those looking for a bit more bite
#NetGalley
#Thefuries

This is sort of like The Secret History meets The Craft, with a bit of Mean Girls thrown in for good measure. When troubled Violet starts at a new school, she finds herself quickly wrapped up in a group of new friends led by the impulsive and enigmatic Robin. While taking part in extracurricular classes the girls become obsessed with the history of the school and rumours of witchcraft. Their interest in mythology and ancient rites sits in stark contrast with their modern adolescent lives, and as Violet becomes more entangled with Robin she begins to grow uneasy about her new friends, and the truth about what happened to another friend of theirs, who had died before Violet met them.

The book is written in dreamy, scattered prose, with edgeless stories and a tendency to jump around, leaving you unsure of what is real and what isn’t - which works to great effect in this case, as the reader inhabits Violet’s uncertainty and confusion about what is really going on. A twisty tangled tale that, in the end has a lot more to do with the complexities of adolescent friendship than witchcraft.

What a fabulously entertaining and addictive novel! I simply couldn't tear myself away from this, and read the whole thing in 2 days. Katie Lowe's writing creates a fantastic atmosphere no matter what she is describing: the setting of a neglected seaside town is inspired, the relationships between the girls are horribly believable. While I did feel things went a bit "over the top" after a certain point and I couldn't *quite* keep suspending my disbelief, I couldn't help loving the book anyway. A great debut, a combination of literary thriller and horror that may also have crossover appeal for older teenage readers.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this. I really enjoyed this, took me back a bit and reminded me a little of the Secret Circle series. Really well written and if you like the film The Craft then you’ll love this book!

A gothic novel exploring the lives of four girls at a private school, The Furies looks into female friendships, toxic relationships, and jealousy, all whilst providing a gripping mystery to solve. I would recommend to any fan of female protagonists and complex characters

This was a interesting book and enjoyed it, think its a fast read too and a lot of ups and downs. Enjoyed the characters and really wanted it to be longer.