Title: Red Hot Fury
Author: Kasey MacKenzie
Series: Shades of Fury #1
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Paranormal fantasy, Strong women
Pace: Slow, Medium, Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace Fantasy
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: No less than the truth.

As a Fury, Marissa Holloway belongs to an arcane race that has avenged wrongdoing since time immemorial. As Boston’s Chief Magical Investigator for the past five years, she’s doing what she was born to do: solving supernatural crimes.

It’s far from business as usual when the body of a sister Fury washes up in Boston Harbor. But when Riss reports that the corpse’s identity has been magically altered, she’s immediately – and inexplicably – suspended from her job. Then a human assassin makes an attempt on her life, and Riss realizes that someone is trying to stir up strife between mortals and arcanes.

When a Fury gets mad, she gets even, and Riss is determined to uncover the truth. Without the support of the mortal PD, she turns to the one man she can trust to watch her back: shape-shifting Warhound Scott Murphy. But since Scott is also Riss’s ex, she’ll have to keep a short leash on more than just the supernatural rage that feeds her power as they try to solve a murder – and stop a war…

When I moved out of home, a lot of my books got boxed up. And sadly this was one of them. But, recently I was able to unpack all of the amazing books that I have stashed over the years and really sink my teeth into them. I read the majority of this in one night. Even though I knew what was going to happen (kind of, it’s been a long time), it still completely swept me away and pulled me in from the very first moment. So much so that I picked up Green-Eyed Envy immediately afterwards. Like I said, it’s just that good.

Furies in the folklore are something that fascinates me – really, anything paranormal and feminine is going to fascinate me if I’m honest. And I really like how this paranormal paragon of justice is also a cop in the story – it helps to layer the paranormal on top of the reality. It’s also a little fun to read a story that starts as a paranormal murder mystery. It quickly turns into something far more complex and intense, but at the very beginning, it lulls you into thinking this is going to be a little bit of a paranormal crime type story.

As with most stories, there is a romantic entanglement throughout Red Hot Fury. However, instead of being a budding romance, it is Riss’ ex that provides the emotional entanglements that raise the stakes of the story. As much as you kind of know that they will eventually end up together (because they always do, and we always enjoy it), I liked the added complication of a past breakup and all of the hot headed words that that entails. The past really informs all of the relationships throughout this tale and the slow unravelling of what is happening along both timelines makes you want to turn each and every page as quickly as possible.

Image source: Goodreads