This one will be big. I really loved the silent patient, was less keen on the maidens but this was brilliant again. The title confused me a bit as it seemed broadly irrelevant but the story is great - a story of old friends, full of mistrust and years old conflicts where no-one really knows their friends as well as they think, As I say, this will do well, and will have full bookseller force behind it in my stores.

I have had mixed feelings about this authors books in the past however I loved this one. It had a good plot and the characters were likeable!

Another cracker from another of my go-to, no need to read the blurb, authors. Note to readers. If you haven't already read The Silent Patient, there is something in this book that will spoil that for you if you read this one first. So, that's your best order if you are planning to read both.
So... This is a delicious psychological thriller starring a cracking bunch of dysfunctional characters, all swept up in a story narrated by one of them - Elliot Chase, close friend to reclusive ex-movie star Lana Farrar who, when we first meet her, has invited a few friends, including Elliot, to her idyllic private Greek island, for a bit of a getaway. Also in attendance are actor friend Kate, Lana's husband Jason, Lana's son (from an earlier marriage) Leo. We also have Agathi and Nikos - housekeeper and caretaker. It isn't long after they all land on the island when the wind gets up. Called the Menos (translation The Fury) it's strong enough to cut them off, leaving them isolated.
And then we hear gunshots and a body lies prone in the middle of a ruin...
And... that's all I'm saying. As really, anything else has the potential to inject spoilers and that's not on. Suffice to say that I absolutely loved this book as much as I have loved all the author's previous ones. It's dark, foreboding, contains secrets and lies and more than enough dysfunctional behaviour to keep a reader going. We also have the usual red herrings, misdirection and unreliable characters. And the expected twists, turns and jaw dropping reveals. The whole shebang! And with the aforementioned veritable cast of misfits, all with cracking parts to play in the whole, all a bit complex, all that together and you got yourself one heck of a multilayered ride...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

A bit disappointed with this book actually. I didn’t care much for the characters, and the writing seemed haphazard and muddled.
The narration was also a bit cheesy, particularly when referring to murder mysteries which seemed a bit strange.

It was somewhat an interesting read. I read it quickly, mostly because I just wanted to finish it. I was also waiting for something thrilling to happen. Unfortunately, the plot and ‘twists’ didn’t deliver as expected and I hoped for something more captivating.

Spoiler alert for the Silent Patient within this book so read than first.

Thank you to NetGalley, Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, AND Alex Michaelides for this book and the opportunity to review it.

I have read this author's previous books and not really enjoyed them but I keep trying as others seem to love them but unfortunately I just could not get into The Fury. I didn't like any of the characters so found it hard to care what happened to them.
I'm sure this will be an instant hit like the previous books but it just didn't work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

Having read all of Alex Michaelides's previous books, I couldn't wait to pick this one up.

It's not quite what I was expecting, especially after loving The Silent Patient.

I found this a little weird. It potentially started well, but it soon started jumping around, which I found a bit confusing. It was a lot slower than I was expecting. It does pick up toward the end, but I think it was a little too late as it made the ending feel rushed and predictable.

As for the characters, I found them intriguing to start, but as the plot progressed, I started to feel they became dull and annoying. Honestly, by the end, I didn't care for any of them.

Now, here's the strange thing although my thoughts sound negative, I still couldn't put the book down.

Overall, I think this wasn't a bad read, but The Silent Patient remains my favourite to date.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher Michael Joseph for my advanced digital advance review copy (eARC). These are my honest and unbiased thoughts, and I am sharing them voluntarily.

Thank you to netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy.

I genuinely don't know how I feel about this.

The story is told from our narrators POV and it frequently stops and goes back over bits from previous timeliness dropping more and more information about what actually happened.

The delivery and idea is actually very clever and unique. It really highlights how our point of view can change the more information we are given and how it skews our perception of what may have happened.

I desperately needed to know what happened and the last few chapters I didn't see coming.

I wish this had more action as I found the retellings a little too much at times.

I'd definitely recommend just to experience the story writing as it's such a fresh idea in the 'who dunnit' genre.

What a stunning novel this is! I thought The Silent Patient was excellent but this is even better! The writing, the characters, the plot...all superb. What I particularly enjoyed was the way the narrator addresses the reader directly, revealing a little information at a time, sometimes hiding or didtorting the truth, sometimes deliberately deceitful. A wonderful book.

I didn’t really connect with any of the characters in this book and I think that’s why I just found it ok. I really enjoyed the Silent Patient so perhaps my expectations were too high for this one.

Many thanks to #NetGalley for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

"The wind plagues that part of the world. It hits it all the year round; not continuously though, or with the same intensity - but every so often, it works itself into a rage and tears a cross the water, battering the islands. Agathi's grandmother used to call the Aegean wind 'to menos': which means 'the fury' in English.

I really enjoyed this very complex, twisty and changeable thriller with an unreliable narrator. Set on a private Greek island near Mykonos, a small group of friends and family members' tensions explode. Split into acts, like a play, because two of the characters, famous and beautiful American Lana and her frenemie British Kate are both actors and vulnerable and misunderstood Elliott, the narrator, is a writer. On a windswept island this appears to be a locked room mystery, but little is as it seems with this group of dysfunctional and dislikeable characters. The action takes place over a few days, although there are chapters in the past to provide context, so it's fast past, all-knowing and dramatic. A dark and deceitful thriller about identity and betrayal, definitely one for your TBR!

The Fury was okay, I did want to know what was going to happen, and I enjoyed the way the story would go back to an earlier time already covered, but from a different point of view, or with more information added. My issue was that I didn’t particularly connect or like any of the characters so I wasn’t particularly bothered about what happened.

Having absolutely loved The Silent Patient, I was very excited to read The Fury. I really enjoyed the conversational narration style, and the way scenes played out and were then repeated but with some key details changed.

At times I thought the story meandered a bit too slowly, and it took a while for it to progress, but on the whole I was hooked by the plot twists and eager to find out whodunnit!

With thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars
Where do I start with this one. I have found this authors previous books a bit hit or miss and this one was somewhere in the middle. It is absolutely ridiculous.
So what did I like about it? At the start I liked how the story was told though the character of Elliott. The breaking of the fourth wall worked for me to begin with. But I have to say after a while this way of story telling becomes annoying.
I also found that it is an easy read, I flew through it in one day. It is filled with drama and twists, some which work and others which don't.
Now onto what I didn't enjoy as much. Unfortunately that has to be the characters. They all fell flat for me and really felt like characters in a play and not real people. I didn't care for any of them.
Make no mistake this is very much Elliott's story. Because of this you never feel like you get to know any one else in the book.
This is also quite slow paced and is definitely a book filled with backstory and very little actual action. By the final third I was desperate for the story to get on with it. The twists were ok but you definitely have to suspend your disbelief.
So this wasn't my favourite by this author, but I would read from him again.

I was very excited to read this after reading Alex Michaelides previous books (I still recommend The Silent Patient to people).
The Fury did not disappoint! It has character depth, twists, turns and shocks. It kept me turning pages well after bedtime.

A cast of characters go to an island for the summer when one person ends up murdered. But who and why? The narrative goes back and forth, giving twist after twist. The protagonist is an unreliable narrator and I was just curious to see where things would go. Atmospheric and gripping, Michaelides has done it again

'There were seven of us in all, trapped on the island. One of us was a murderer . . .'

Alex Michaelides enticingly tempts the reader to join playwright Elliot Chase as he relates a intriguing and twisty murder mystery, a man with difficult and challenging. It has the most beautiful of locations, set on small private isolated Greek island,. Aura, 'haunted', known for its winds, the fury, cutting off Aura when they blow and batter, in the Aegean Sea. It is owned by a former film star, the reclusive Lana Farrar, who has invited a small group to come stay for Easter. Elliot Chase is the vibrant, able, if unreliable, narrator, where little and no-one is as they first appear and simmering below the surface is a seething cauldron of feelings, resentments and different perspectives, lies and deceptions.

We slowly learn about a theatre actor, Kate, Lana's teenage son, Leo, harbouring ambitions of becoming an actor, Jason, Lana's 2nd husband, and housekeeper, Agathi, and the caretaker, Nikos. In the night, surprise shots are heard, and a body lies dead. In Elliot's expert hands and his intrusive insertions, a fascinating, complex, hypnotic story emerges, dark, and dramatic, with a cast of largely unlikable characters, with more twists, twirls, and turns than you can shake a leg at. Circling through the past and present, the atmospheric narrative is structured into the 5 parts of a play, that you want to listen to from start to end.

This is a wonderfully multilayered, engaging and highly entertaining read, with short chapters that you just race through in the need to know how it all ends, and included are characters that fans of the author will be familiar with from previous books. This is a terrific novel that I think many of the author's fans are likely to enjoy too, as indeed are other readers in the crime, mystery and thrillers genre. Many thanks to the publisher for a ARC.

I could not wait to get stuck into this! I’ve read the past two books by this author and found this a brilliant addition. I love the use of mythology the author brings to his work

I thank NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.
I read and reviewed The Silent Patient, Michaelides’s first novel, which became a bestseller, almost five years ago, and I wasn’t totally convinced by it. There were aspects of it I liked, for example, the writing, but others didn’t work so well for me.
I didn’t read his second novel, but I was curious enough about the third, and because the setting was quite different, I decided to give it a go. And well... again, there are things I like, and others I’m not so keen on.
It is very difficult to talk about this book without giving too much away, because rather than having a twist... I’d say it is built and narrated in such a way that it twists and turns readers forward and back in time and space, and it also relies on an extremely unreliable narrator. Elliot is not my favourite unreliable narrator (and I do like them), but there is something appealing about the way the story is told by somebody who keeps breaking the fourth wall (and he tells us he writes theatre plays [and he has written a very successful one, in fact] from the beginning, so it seems fitting), and, of course, doing everything he tells us he is determined not to do.
The story itself sounds quite familiar. We’ve all read books and watched movies based on a similar premise (even the exact same, and Elliot refers to Agatha Christie more than once): several characters (seven in this case) are alone in an isolated place (a private Greek island here, but it might be a mansion, a train carriage, a hotel...) and one of them is murdered. We are told that this is not a standard Whodunnit, and that is true.
Reading this novel is a bit like trying to get out of a maze. You confidently advance down a path, only to discover that there is no way out and you have to turn back and retake the route at some other point, and then your efforts are thwarted again, and again, and again...
This book will work better for those who like the main character, Elliot, who, as is the case with many narrators, goes beyond the facts of what happened and ends up revealing a lot about himself. We read much about Lana Farrar, the movie star and friend of Elliot, but we learn far less about the rest of the characters, and as it is all filtered through Elliot’s eyes, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt. We have another actress and long-time friend of Lana, Kate; Leo, Lana’s son by her first husband; Jason, Lana’s new husband; Nikos, the Greek caretaker of the island, who lives there all year round, and Agathe, a Greek live-in housekeeper (and friend) of Lana. The island (with its troubled reputation), and its extreme-at-times weather (the fury of the title is an apt description of the wind) also play a big part in the story, which is one of friendship, envy, love, jealousy, secrets, lies, and troubled, damaged, and misunderstood characters.
Writers are likely to be intrigued by the process of building up this novel and by its use of an unreliable narrator. Other readers will enjoy it if they connect with the style of writing and the narrator, but if they don’t care for the characters or the way the story is told, it could turn into a frustrating read.
I won’t comment on the ending in any detail, but, as other reviewers have done, I’d also warn those who haven’t read The Silent Patient and are planning to read it soon, to not rush to read this one, because although this is a stand-alone novel, its the epilogue contains a spoiler about the author’s first, so you might want to wait until you’ve read that one before reading The Fury.
I enjoyed the way the story was written and some of the asides and comments of the narrator —whom I wouldn’t say I liked, although that has never been a prerequisite for my enjoyment of a good novel— but I wasn’t that fond of the rest of the characters, and I think that perhaps the emphasis on the mechanics of the storytelling ends up emptying it of any deeper meaning or feeling. As usual, I’d recommend that anybody interested check a sample of the book and see if it hooks them; and if they’re happy to be taken for the proverbial ride, then go ahead. You’re likely to have fun.

I still have to read The Silent Patient and I have two copies so there is no excuse, but when I saw this one I liked the synopsis and it turned out to be a very enjoyable read. This is a dark slow burner of a thriller and one that focuses on a small group of friends.

Told from the perspective of Eliot, one of the group the whole narration comes from him. He tells of those involved, the past and the present and takes the reader on an enigmatic journey through to the final scene. The story is laid out in acts and this does work well as the story is about theatre, an actress, movies and the connections between the characters. It is a tragedy as such but one that is not as straightforward as it first appears.

I really enjoyed this story and I liked how devious the characters become. The story lays out the scenario and then the fun begins, getting to know the characters and how they all came to be on the Greek Island. You don't immediately know why there was a death but you know there was one. It is the journey to the answers rather than the answering of questions that makes this a good read.

The isolation of the island gives it an atmospheric air, especially with the mythological histories and also the strong Hitchcock presence in the story, he is mentioned a few times and is a muse as such. Again this adds to the atmosphere and intrigue.

Having a group of people in the story is good, but having just one narrator was ideal for this story and it worked so well. It gave a one-sided view of events, but then it changed and became a battle and turned into a psychological thriller as well.

This is a story that has a lot going on but it is told in a well laid out way and this is what made the story so addictive. Watching the twists develop and appear was great. It is a whodunnit and there is a lot of misdirection, the characters are flawed and not really that likeable if I am honest. The end of the story came in a whirlwind with a frenetic feel as the truth finally emerged.

A mix of psychological, thriller, mystery, whodunnit, murder, suspense and a very, very good read. It is one I would happily recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Elliot is a playwright who participated in a trip to an island off of Mykonos, owned by Lana, his friend and an ex-Hollywood star. Lana's husband Jason, her friend Kate, her son Leo, her assistant Agathi, and her caretaker are all there and someone dies. Elliot is recapping how all of these people came to be on the island and how the death ensued to us in the form of a play.

I liked The Silent Patient, I didn't like The Maidens and I mostly liked this book. It didn't have the mythology references that I disliked from The Maidens. It was a short quick read and I was mostly engaged, although I did think it started out a bit slow. It was an interesting enough story overall, filled with completely unlikeable people, and I was interested in finding out, first who died, and then how and why. The play format was interesting. I will say that so much happened at the end, that I was a tad confused, but overall a good read. I will read more from this author.