What Fury Brings by Tricia Levenseller
Thank you to Tricia Levenseller, Macmillan, and NetGalley for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. Commissions may be earned on links in this article.
Book Recap: In world where women rule, Olerra needs to secure the throne for the kingdom of Amarra over her wicked cousin. To gain favor with her people, she kidnaps one of the king’s sons from the neighboring kingdom of Brutus and makes him her husband-to-be. What she doesn’t know is the prince is hiding a secret that could ruin both their kingdoms.
Top Tropes/Themes:
🪢 Kidnapping
💎 Forced Marriage
🖤Enemies-to-Loves
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (explicit open door)
Overall Rating: ⭐⭐.75 (2.75 stars)
Let’s Talk About It…
After reading The Shadows Between Us last year, I became a Tricia Levenseller fan. I loved how she wrote a strong female lead and the tension between the characters. I knew going into What Fury Brings that the world she built in this story was very different than that of her young adult works. If you are thinking of picking up this book because of her previous writing then I highly recommend you read the author’s note beforehand. Tricia Levenseller explains that this book isn’t a feminist book, but rather a rage book. I believe this note sets the tone for the story and makes her intent clear.
What Fury Brings is not an easy book to read. It’s uncomfortable to see men in a position we often find women in within a fantasy setting and beyond. While I know that discomfort was part of the intent, to show that a flipped world wouldn’t be a better one but more of the same with a different vantage point, I think there were many elements that were added to increase the shock value. As someone who has read her previous works, I missed the tension and the banter between the main love interests. The focus was more on the cruelty and disgusting nature of the world rather than the relationship between the characters that I was used to.
The rage of the author came through on many notes, but I did not feel like Olerra was written in a way that promoted strength. A common theme for her throughout the book was just wishing the prince would like her and fall in love with her. It weakened the impact of the story.
I typically do not read dark fantasy, but I wanted to give this book a try because of how much I loved the other books that I have read by Tricia Levenseller. It is difficult for me to say if the reason I did not enjoy this book is due to my tendency to shy away from darker books or the writing itself, but my rating reflects the fact that I spent more time not enjoying what I was reading than I did enjoying the content.
If you are someone who likes dark fantasy and want to see a drastically different world than you typically find in fantasy novels, you would likely enjoy this book. I do appreciate the concept that Tricia Levenseller was attempting to convey here and reading a story that was different than the norm.
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