Guest Review: Red Hot Fury by Kasey Mackenzie

Posted August 20, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 2 Comments

Publisher: Ace, Jove, PenguinGenres: Urban Fantasy

Kris‘ review of Red Hot Fury (Shades of Fury Book 1) by Kasey Mackenzie


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: solving supernatural crimes.


It’s far from business as usual when the body of one of Riss’s sister Furies washes up in Boston harbor. Riss discovers that the corpse’s identity has been magically altered, but as soon as she reports her findings, she’s immediately—and inexplicably—suspended from her job. Then a human assassin makes an attempt on her life, and Riss starts to realize that someone may be trying to stir up strife between mortals and Arcanes.


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

The story starts with Riss being called to a dead body on the beach. The body is that of a sister fury named Vanessa that has been missing for three years. Then it turns out that it is not actually Vanessa, and though this is good it opens a can of worms about her disappearance and a new can of worms about what it actually is and what is going on. To help her with this she has to go talk to her ex that she has not spoken to for about two years. His family runs the best bodyguard business out there. But to work together they have to work out why she broke up with him. They find out that what everyone thought was an extinct species are actually alive and being held captive but people who are breeding them and using them for bad purposes. And the captures are branching out to abduct other species as well. Now Riss and her friends have to go rescue them without too many people finding out about this or another war will begin.

The things I liked about the book. I really liked the main characters, Riss was very interesting. She was kick butt and stubborn but could usually admit when she needed some outside help. The book had a stronger romantic element than I usually see in UF and the hero, Scott was a sexy character. He was a shapeshifter, a warhound to be precise and i thought that was different. All in all I really enjoyed the main characters but I had some issues with the storyline and the worldbuilding.

The things that I did not like about it: it felt not totally thought out with the world building there were some parts that were confusing because of that. It felt like I was missing things sometimes, like when you read the second in the series with out reading the first book, because there was a lot that was not explained about the world. There were a lot of different species introduced for a first in a series. So sometimes that got confusing remembering who was what and who was who.

I give it a 3 out of 5.

Read more from Kris at The Reading Spot.

This book is available from ACE. You can buy it here.


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2 responses to “Guest Review: Red Hot Fury by Kasey Mackenzie

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