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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Premise Holds Promise But Execution Flawed, May 7, 2010
This review is from: Red Hot Fury (A Shades of Fury Novel) (Mass Market Paperback)
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Reading Kasey MacKenzie's Red Hot Fury, the first in a new urban fantasy series, is like walking into a movie ten minutes after it's started. Though you are able to follow along well enough, you feel slightly disoriented, constantly in the need to catch up, and even if you enjoy it, it ends leaving you as though you've missed something. That was precisely my experience with MacKenzie's book, though it wasn't for lack of effort from the author. Indeed, my guess is that because there's such a full back story spread throughout Red Hot Fury, readers such as myself will mistakenly believe it's not the first in the series. I actually did a web search looking for book number one when I realized I'd just finished it. The sheer amount of world-building attempted by the author only added to the problem. Most urban fantasy series, wisely, expand the universe of "others" over a period of books so as not to overwhelm readers. Unfortunately, MacKenzie features so many types of "Arcanes," as she calls them, in book one of her series, that readers may easily be overwhelmed and confused. What drew me to the book was my interest in Greek mythology. You may recall that the Furies are goddesses of vengeance who punish criminals by driving them insane. Red Hot Fury's lead character, Marissa, the Chief Magical Investigator for the Boston PD, is also a Fury. In MacKenzie's world, both genetics and choice are involved in being a Fury, and the twist is this: A Fury is essentially a host to two serpents who lie dormant as tattoos on her arms unless she calls them forth. If at some point, however, her serpents are killed, she ceases to be a Fury and becomes a Harpy, the irony being that Harpies are considered crazy. While I appreciated that bit of irony, not enough of the story focused on the ancient Greeks and their religion, again because the author threw so many types of "Arcanes" into the mix, including the Irish Sidhe, and once the Sidhe storyline became clear, MacKenzie's world began to seem derivative of series penned by Lora Leigh and Keri Arthur, among others. After Marissa is called in to investigate the death of a sister Fury, she realizes something is "off." The tattoos don't look quite right, but before can fully investigate, she is suspiciously suspended from her job and nearly killed. She must turn to her ex-boyfriend, the Warhound Scott Murphy, for help. They'd broken up two years earlier over what turns out to be a lack of healthy communication, and though the book is not a romance, their reconnection is one of its best aspects, though more than occasionally frustrating. Naturally Marissa has stumbled upon a dangerous plot that gets thicker and thicker, involving both the Arcane and the Mundane, secret quasi-government facilities, and contracts out for her head from more than one source. None of this is new either, and it's a draw as to how much suspense the author creates. On the one hand the main red herring baddie was obviously a red herring to me and the true baddie not difficult to suss out, but on the other, fairly late in the story the author reveals a whopper of a surprise that totally shocked me. The urban fantasy field has become saturated; there are as many bad-ass heroines as there are dukes in Regency-set English historical romances, and choosing which series to follow gets more and more difficult every day. In the end Kasey MacKenzie doesn't quite deliver on the promise offered in Red Hot Fury, and I doubt I'll be back for book two.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slightly Colder Than Anticipated, July 19, 2010
This review is from: Red Hot Fury (A Shades of Fury Novel) (Mass Market Paperback)
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Red Hot Fury concerns Marissa, or Riss, a red hot fury of legend. It turns out that at some point in the past arcanes (this author's version of what to call magic folk) decided to move into the human world as something was going wrong with theirs - there was a war - then a truce and now arcanes and mortals live together in an uneasy peace. Furies act as the arcane police to protect humans from magic folk. Our mystery begins with the finding of a dead body that turns out to be very similar to Riss' missing friend and turns into a series of assassination attempts and rescue missions. Here are some good things about the book. It moves along quickly which helps to keep you engaged in the action. The actions scenes are well rendered for the most part so when fighting occurs you are pulled in and taken along. There are a bevy of supernatural creatures with different powers and abilities. Parts of the plot are pretty neat ideas. No matter how slowly I did eventually finish reading the book - at least interested in the final outcome. For the not so good I have to start with my main one, which is Marissa. She's our main character and narrates the entire story. The problem with this is she's kind of an annoying person and there's never a break from her. She's constantly telling you how awesome furies are and how kick butt she is, which would be fine if the action bore that out, but she spends most of the time getting injured, the crap beat out of her and making stupid mistakes and rushing in without thinking. So she comes off more as a blow hard. You've only ever *told* me how good you are, Riss, you've never shown me. This blow hard effect isn't helped by the fact that she almost as constantly tells you how great looking she is and how her uniform, a hot, red, leather outfit (you can see it on the cover) makes her so hot and kick butt looking and commands respect. Really? One issue for he-men like me (why are you laughing?) is that what promised to be an action tale turned out to be 75% "love" story. Our kick butt, tough as nails, heroine spends half the time mooning over her ex who (of course) she has to go to for help. He's the only one she can trust even if they did have a messy break up. The type where someone walks out the door calling it the END before the other person actually explains why they've done what they've done. And love is in quotes because I'm never made to believe they were or are in love at any point - I'm told about it. It really seems more like they are in lust to me. Another distraction is vagueness. Want to know more about that arcane human war? Too bad. Do you want to know how magic works? I hope not because it just happens when it needs too. There's vague mention that it comes from the earth but that's about it - who can wield it how and when is a mystery. Want to know the powers of the various creatures? Maybe you will maybe you won't. It's just that there's so much glossed over that when something new happens it seems like the rule was made up on the spot. For example, early on we learn that Riss can fly and change shape to some extent and is strong (well she says so) but did you know she can create magic force fields? Me neither until she needed one. Did you know that war hounds are always born in hound form then shortly change to human afterwards? The reader doesn't either until its important for a certain character. There is the magic itself. It's a bit clunky and obtrusive. Aside from the above there are also attempts to combine magic with technology. But when someone describes magic email and someone pulls out a magic GPS (seriously, they do) it's just a bit silly sounding. We learn that one magic wep (as Riss annoyingly calls weapons) will stun you with one shot, kill you with two, but the kill shot is worth two magic bullets so if you shoot someone twice for a kill it is worth three bullets. You read that right - the rules for magic guns (hey that's just as short a word as weps) come right out of a video game manual. Other distractions? Half of everyone has a nickname so it's like you have to learn and remember names twice. The "Scottish" character's name is Patrick MacAllister, Mac for short. All furies are magic cops, all giants can dig, all war hounds are fiercely loyal, all goblins are untrustworthy, all harpies are nasty - are humans the only creatures with more than one personality trait or defining characteristic? More than one person uses "fox faced" as an insult. There are lots of clunky bits of dialog. Rage - always capitalized. What is Rage? I don't know. I know Riss must always keep it in check or risk turning into a Harpy, I know it is always capitalized so must be more than just getting mad, and I know she mentions it over and over and over again to the point that I thought if I saw the word "Rage" again I'd be sick. OK, I know it sounds like I'm completely dogging the book. But for a light read it's not bad. Aside from the language and lusty scenes it might make good young adult reading. I did finish it and want to get to the ending but it was slow work. The problem was that every time I picked it up I'd hit one of the above distractions and be pulled out of the book (eyes rolling at times) and being pulled out of the book that often does not good reading make.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
By the Numbers, July 24, 2010
This review is from: Red Hot Fury (A Shades of Fury Novel) (Mass Market Paperback)
I hate this book so much that I distrust my own opinion, so indulge me as I enumerate what I think author Kasey Mackenzie gets wrong. 1) In the first paragraph of page one, our narrator and protagonist, Marissa Holloway, drops not two, not three, but four sardonic witticisms. This sets the tone for the whole book. Marissa's style nakedly rips off hundreds of East Coast-based crime movies in which the heroic but jaded cop uses sarcasm to keep everyone else at arm's length. 2) Apropos of nothing, on page 4, Marissa announces her years-long romantic drought, a main theme of the book. I'm heartily sick of fantasy mysteries by women authors in which they can only make their heroines human by giving them no luck with men. With a whole orchestra of human experience, they only blow one note on the oboe. 3) Marissa starts out angry, gets angrier, and, until two pages from the end, never demonstrates any emotion but some form of anger. Except lust, which in her case consistently smacks of anger. Then she complains that few people like or trust her. May I mail her a clue? 4) By chapter two, Marissa is suspended from duty. The action is manifestly unjust, forcing her to go rogue to solve the crime. But this is fantasy, so she seeks help from the council of Furies, supernatural police. They too shut her down. Mackenzie double-dips from the Cliché Store. 5) Moments after suspension, Marissa engages in a shootout. Her partner is wounded. Name me a cop movie that doesn't feature this. But since we haven't reached page twenty, this feels unearned. Instead of affecting us, the author manipulates us. 6) With nowhere to run, Marissa seeks out her ex, a mercenary. She hates him with such passion that you know they'll fall in bed by the end. He wants her, she wants him, and it takes only a few pages for old misunderstandings go bye-bye, but she still refuses to have sex. Who is she punishing? Just take your clothes off and do it already! 7) Marissa's world suffered a massive war between supernatural beings and humans, so recently that veterans remain alive and active. This war changed society NOT ONE BIT. When Nancy Holzner and Kelly Gay create fantasy worlds where magic occurs openly, they imagine changed worlds. Mackenzie can't be bothered. 8) Marissa blames a local Mafioso for her sister-in-law's disappearance. She believes it so fiercely that we know he must be innocent. Indeed, we know they'll be allies by the end. That subplot wastes our precious reading time. 9) One ensemble character is supposedly Scottish. His first words in this story? "Aye, lassie." My best friend is from Edinburgh, and in seven years, I've never heard him say either "aye" or "lassie." Mackenzie should expand beyond gangster-film ethnic stereotypes. 10) Someone attacks Marissa inside her ex's family compound. She induces that his family must (gasp!) harbor a mole. Seasoned readers start a suspect list and test it against mounting evidence. Marissa does not. Thus, the climactic revelation surprises nobody... except Marissa. 11) Near page 200, Marissa's wounded partner returns (see #5 above). Though she was shot just days ago, she is out of the hospital and back on the force. I don't believe this for a minute, because a real cop who takes a bullet, even if it misses bones and vital organs, faces months of physical therapy, and may still get forced out with a disability pension. 12) If you probed a case involving shape-shifters, and two people you thought dead returned, wouldn't you be a bit suspicious? But for someone who vigorously nurses grudges, Marissa is remarkably trusting when she should be skeptical. Mackenzie rewards this slovenliness by letting this discrepancy come to nothing. I could continue, but it gets mean, and this approaches spoiler territory. Notice how often I mention movies. I see little between these covers to suggest that Mackenzie reads recreationally. Perhaps she'd prefer writing screenplays. Maybe she thinks this book will give her a boost in Hollywood. I'd rather read books that didn't waste my scarce time.
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