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Red Hot Fury (A Shades of Fury Novel Book 1) Kindle Edition
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Introducing a sizzling new urban fantasy series featuring Marissa Holloway, an immortal Fury who doesn't just get mad...she gets even.
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: solve supernatural crimes.
But Riss's investigation into a dead sister Fury leads to her being inexplicably suspended from her job. And to uncover the truth behind this cover-up, she'll have to turn to her shape-shifting Warhound ex for help.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAce
- Publication dateJune 29, 2010
- Reading age18 years and up
- File size1283 KB
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the mass_market edition.
Review
"A fantastic, wild ride of a debut. I couldn't put it down!" --Nalini Singh, New York Times Bestselling Author of the Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter Series.
RED HOT FURY pulls you in-Riss is a Fury with sass, skills, red leather [and] a sexy Warhound by her side. If you're ready for a unique spin on [the] paranormal-and to stay up too late reading-grab RHF. [It] sets a new standard for urban fantasy. --Chloe Neill, Author of the Chicagoland Vampires Series --This text refers to the mass_market edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B0058W6A2M
- Publisher : Ace (June 29, 2010)
- Publication date : June 29, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 1283 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 348 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #772,555 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,344 in Fantasy Anthologies & Short Stories (Kindle Store)
- #1,926 in Superhero Fantasy eBooks
- #8,888 in Short Stories Anthologies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Kasey Mackenzie lives with her husband and son in St. Louis, Missouri; home of the Gateway Arch, the baseball Cardinals, and the world's greatest thin-crust pizza. Kasey was one of those students who always had her nose in a book--so no big surprise when she was voted "Teacher's Pet" in her high school yearbook. Today, she is a voracious reader of fantasy, romance, suspense, and science fiction. She adores her German shepherd puppy, wicked kitty cat, playing softball, and teaching Zumba. Passionate about the written word, she feels extremely lucky to make a living as an editor and writer. Now, if she could just figure out how to get paid for cleaning her own house, maybe that would happen more often...
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Whenever I begin a book I always read the dedication and acknowledgments written by the author. Those two things usually give me a lot of insight into what I might expect concerning writing style in the book. That was absolutely true in this case. So I wasn't completely surprised by the exuberant writing personality which came through in this novel. I enjoyed the style of writing and the fast paced action filled drama involved. After all, since the author had chosen to make her heroine a Fury, she might as well make that character move along at warp speed in everything she does. Even though it is probably rather hard to come up with story lines which are totally new in the crowded urban fantasy genre Ms Mackenzie did provide her main protagonist with some rather unique characteristics. Having the snake tattoos on each arm which came alive as Nemesis and Nike when their magical abilities are needed was a really imaginative touch. I especially enjoyed the way Marissa often talked to them and said things like "calm down ladies". That was wonderfully done. The choice to have Marissa go back to her ex-boyfriend to enlist his help as a mercenary to hunt down the brains behind the scheme she began to uncover was probably not entirely original, but Scott is quite a good, well defined character and his presence in the story was a treat.
Several things were not as enjoyable for me, leading off with the shear multitude of Arcane beings introduced. Some of this story is setting up what will surely be the next novel in a series, but sometimes less honestly is better when it concerns dealing with all the work that goes into getting a reader to understand the fictional world an author is inventing. Fewer characters would have made the story go smoother for me as a reader. Another bump in the road for me was the current choice of using abbreviations or shortened versions of words to excess. We are all familiar with how fast technology is moving along and how abbreviations and acronyms are everywhere. The problem is that they are not always the best method to use in writing. There is one particular scene in this book which illustrates this from my viewpoint. The chief villain falls on a "wep" and dies. That one partial word just sucked every bit of drama out of that hugely climactic scene. It would have been so much better to have completely and fully described this particular weapon. It doesn't matter that it had been mentioned before, do it again right at that point for full emphasis of what just happened. So my advice is to be very, very careful where shortened versions of words are used because a written story is not the same as everyday spoken language.
Ultimately I enjoyed this book enough to want to finish it and understand what happened to the many characters I had been introduced to. Something which I absolutely loved was the cover art by Judy York. It is one of the best representations I've seen of a character in a novel and will absolutely be a driving force in having readers pick this book up to take a peek inside. I was gratified to see in the acknowledgments that author Kasey Mackenzie feels the same way. See, I tell you that you need to read those acknowledgments!
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.
Top reviews from other countries

It's an easy read, with no cliff hangers thank goodness, and there are some wonderful ideas introduced regarding the magical world Riss inhabits.
I especially enjoyed the antagonist who is revealed, and the harpies. What saves this book for me is the confrontation at the end, & the feel of the book as a whole. Oodles of great ideas, good start to a series that promises loads.
I get from her website, Book 2 - Green Eyed envy is due for release in summer 2011 on Amazon.com so should be over here shortly after, I'm intrigued enough to see where Riss heads next...


Furien sind in dieser Welt Teil der Arcane Community die vor einigen Jahren begann aus ihren sterbenden Dimensionen auf die Erde zu flüchten. Zu der Communit gehört alles was die Mythologie so hergibt von Ägyptischen Katzengestaltwandlern bis zu Riesen ist alles dabei. Die Furien bilden die interne Polizei und sorgen für schnelle und wenn nötig tödliche Gerechtigkeit.
Menschen und Arkane haben natürlich nicht sofort in Frieden zueinander gefunden und zunächst Krieg geführt. Nun Jahre später will niemand der wackligen Frieden gefährden und die Furien unterstützen die sterbliche Polizei bei ihrer Arbeit.
Riss ist eine der Furien bei der Polizei von Boston und ihr neuester Fall wird einigen Staub aufwirbeln. Sie und ihre sterbliche Partnerin werden zu einem Leichenfund gerufen, doch die Leiche ist keine unbekannte. Sie sieht aus wie Riss` lang vermisste Furienschwester Nessa. Wie ist sie umgekommen? Wo war sie all die Jahre? Riss wird alles daran setzen es herauszufinden.
Was beginnt wie ein 08/15 Krimi entwickelt sich im Hinblick auf den zu lösenden Fall in einen echten Kracher. Die Twists kommen schnell halten den Leser auf Trab, man möchte auf jeden Fall wissen wie es weiter geht. Leider ist das der einzige Bereich in dem die Autorin hier Können beweist. Die Charakterisierung von Riss und die unvermeidliche Love-Story war so Klischeebeladen dass es keinen Spaß gemacht hat. Vom Missverständnis dass die Liebenden trennt zu dämlichen Eifersuchtsdramen und zwei Menschen, die sich lieben aber es einfach nicht aussprechen können war alles dabei. Das hat man woanders wirklich schon besser gelesen.
Mir kam auch die Mythologie hier ein wenig zu kurz. Furien und Harpien werden ausführlich erklärt und auch ein zwei andere Rassen kürzer beschrieben, aber ein Gesamteindruck der bunten Welt formt sich nicht. Ein wenig mehr Mythologie und dafür weniger Love Story hätten dem Buch sehr gut getan.
Trotzdem habe ich mich gut unterhalten gefühlt und werde den nächsten Teil in der Hoffnung lesen, dass die Autorin sich weiter entwickelt.
