Fury

Starred review from September 24, 2018
This gripping novel, set in the immediate aftermath of the events of Spectacle, concludes Vincent’s Menagerie series in marvelous fashion. In an alternate near-future Maryland, Delilah Marlow, a cryptid endowed with the formidable supernatural powers of the avenging furiae, and newly escaped from government-sanctioned imprisonment of her species, helps to rescue members of her extended cryptid family from a university research facility. Her efforts are complicated by her pregnancy with her child by her fear dearg lover, Gallagher, which is prompting her to acts of bloodshed so out of character that she wonders whether they portend a critical destiny for her. In alternating chapters, Vincent revisits 1986, the year of “the reaping,” when a worldwide act of genocide divided humans and cryptids into warring species and laid foundations for the revelations about identity and family that explode in the closing chapters. The book is a fitting finale to an exceptional dark fantasy series, as memorable for its sensitive depiction of a marginalized race as for its surprising plot twists. Agent: Merrilee Heiftez, Writers House.