Fury

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Synopsis

Nurse Ellie Brower was horrified to discover that the pharmaceutical company she worked for was performing illegal experiments, splicing human and animal DNA to create entirely new species, so when a government agent asked for her help infiltrating the company, she readily agreed. However, while working undercover inside the lab, she developed a soft spot for Fury, one of the subjects. Just as she's finally collected the proof she needs to take them down, she sees Fury being abused by one of the lab techs. Unable to simply walk away while such an injustice is being carried out, Ellie bursts into the cell to put a stop to it, but in the process, she ends up killing the tech. Knowing that Fury is too valuable for them to kill and that she would be murdered herself if she's found out, Ellie frames Fury for the tech's death and escapes. The information she took with her eventually brings down the organization, leading to the release of all the test subjects, who are given a renovated military base as their new home. Ellie eagerly accepts a job working at the base with the female New Species, but when she meets up with Fury for the first time since the lab and he wants to kill her for what she did, she knows she might be in trouble.

Ellie was the only person at Mercile Industries who ever showed Fury any kindness, so when she betrayed his trust by framing him for murder, which ended with him being tortured for it, he vowed to kill her if he ever got the chance. When he discovers her working at Homeland, the base given to the New Species, he flies into a rage, but when she seems apologetic his heart softens toward her. After hearing her explanations, he decides to torture her in a more sensual way, but once isn't enough. Soon the animal in him recognizes Ellie as his mate and he'll do anything to have her. Although Ellie proves just as eager to be with him as he is with her, hate groups have started protesting outside the gates of Homeland, and their violence places both him and Ellie in danger. Mercile has also been trying to rehab their image after such a monumental scandal, and unbeknownst to them all, they've infiltrated Homeland in an attempt to make the New Species look bad. Fury and Ellie will have many obstacles in their path to overcome on their way to finding a happy ending.

Review

Fury is the first book in Laurann Dohner's rather prolific New Species series, which tells the story of a group of people whose genes were successfully spliced with those of various animals to create an entirely new species. Mercile Industries, the pharmaceutical company that created them, subjected them to horrific experiments, testing new drugs. Thanks to the bravery of Ellie, the heroine of this story, they were finally released from captivity and are now building new lives for themselves on an army base granted to them by the government as their Homeland. As this story opens, Fury, one of the New Species, is being tortured by a lab tech, just as Ellie, a nurse who worked for Mercile and has been undercover trying to find evidence to bring them down, is about to escape with a thumb drive containing all that she needs to make that happen. However, Ellie has a soft spot for Fury and when she sees what's happening, she risks everything to put a stop to it, killing the lab tech in the process. With no way to get Fury out and knowing that if they connect her with the lab tech's death she'll be killed, too, she reluctantly frames Fury for the tech's death so that she can get the evidence to her handler, but not before a drugged Fury vows to kill her himself. Fast forward nearly a year, and Ellie has been hired to work at Homeland, running the women's dorm. When she chances to meet up with Fury again, he nearly does kill her and is only stopped by the New Species leader. Later, though, he accosts Ellie in the park still burning for revenge, but after she tries to explain why she took the actions she did, he decides to get even in a more seductive way. However, one night isn't nearly enough for Fury who has realized that Ellie is his mate, but if the hate groups protesting outside Homeland's gates have their way, Fury and Ellie may not have a future together. Not to mention, Mercile is still out there, trying to rehab their own image by making all New Species look bad.

Although the author is never specific about just how the people who became New Species ended up in the lab, it's implied that Fury was raised there at least since childhood, possibly was even born there. He never seemed to know any other life except the torturous experiments until Ellie's actions set them all free. Fury hated all the humans, but Ellie was the one person he liked and thought he could trust, until she framed him for murder, which led to a lot more torture until their rescue arrived. Because he perceived her actions as a betrayal, he vowed to kill her, and nearly does when he finds her working at Homeland. It's only Justice, their leader, who stops him. Fury is now second in command to Justice and head of the New Species security. He may have let Ellie go the first time, but still wanting revenge, he stalks her in the park. Even after hearing her explanations, the animal in him can't let it go, so he chokes her unconscious and takes her to his home, where he ties her to the bed and has his way with her. This whole scenario wasn't at all to my liking, and the only thing that marginally kept it from being rape was that he did eventually request and receive her consent, but it still didn't sit well with me. Of course once isn't enough for him. He eventually realizes she's his mate and circumstances allow for them to move in together, but both the hate groups and Mercile are still out for blood, which could ruin their burgeoning relationship. Readers who love uber-alpha, caveman-type heroes will probably eat Fury up, but I'm afraid that most of the time, he was a bit too much for me. He's constantly growling and scowling, and doesn't have any real gentleness in him to speak of. Also, for someone who was raised in a lab and subjected to the kind of torturous experiments he was, he doesn't show a whole lot of ill effects from it like a true tortured hero would. It's only toward the end, that he shows any genuine vulnerability, but even that is short-lived. I really wanted to like Fury and feel something for him, but for the most part, he just wasn't my kind of hero.

Ellie worked for Mercile as a nurse, but until she was approached by an FBI agent, she had no idea what kind of horrific experiments they were conducting in their secret lab. After being informed, the empathetic person in her wanted nothing more than to help out, so she went undercover, looking for evidence and is about to leave with it, when she sees Fury being tortured and about to be raped by a lab tech. She'd always cared for Fury, so she jumps into action to save him, killing the tech and then framing Fury out of necessity. She wants to continue helping the New Species, so when they offered her a job running the women's dorm at Homeland, she jumped at the chance. Although Ellie had good reasons for her prior actions at the lab, she's felt guilty ever since, so when she meets Fury again at Homeland and he tries to kill her, a part of her feels like it's his due, which is why she eventually consents to his little forced seduction scenario. She thinks that will be the end of it, but he continues to stalk her, and after he saves her life, she moves in with him for protection. Of course, this leads to all sorts of sexy fun times until more violent protesters and Mercile come calling, threatening their lives.

I felt like Ellie was brave to go up against Mercile, and I admire her caring for the New Species and wanting to help them in any way she could. However, as hard as I tried, I just couldn't understand her attraction to Fury and her willingness to give in to all his whims. I don't really care what the circumstances were. If a guy had choked me out and tied me to his bed naked, there's no way I would have consented to having sex with him. He never really treats her with kindness or gentleness. Even when protesters try to kill her, he just growls at her, leaving her thinking he's mad at her, which is not sexy to me at all. I also thought she was very foolish to go to Fury at the end when he's drugged into a rage. She insists that he won't harm her, but I had no idea where that certainty was coming from. Of course, he conveniently doesn't, so all's well that ends well, I suppose. Ellie was an okay heroine but she was a little too much of a marshmallow when it came to Fury and there were several things she did that didn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'd heard a lot of great things about the New Species series and it has great ratings on GoodReads and Amazon, so I'd really been looking forward to trying it. I enjoyed the general concept of the series which isn't unlike Lora Leigh's Breeds, another series that got its start with the now defunct Ellora's Cave publishing house. However, I ended up feeling rather disappointed with it, because the execution left a lot to be desired. Much like with the Breeds books I've read so far, this first New Species book left me with a lot of unanswered questions with regards to the world building. It just isn't nearly as fully realized as many other books I've read in the speculative romance genre. Also the character and relationship development is pretty minimal. As I mentioned before, Fury shows few ill effects from his time in captivity, while we barely scratch the surface of who Ellie is as a person. Their relationship relies mostly on sex and the fated mate trope, which is not a favorite of mine because it usually leans into insta-love. It's just hard for me to fathom unless there's a strong emotional connection, which unfortunately isn't the case here IMHO. Another thing that dragged the story down for me were the technical aspects of the writing. There's tons of repetition and overly verbose dialogue, which if pared down by a good editor, would have allowed more room for character and relationship development and better world-building. Then there's the lack of contractions in dialogue. At first, I thought that the more formal nature of it was just the New Species' speech cadence, but when it started showing up in Ellie's and other human characters' dialogue as well, I became inclined to think that it was more a failure of the author/editorial team to catch it. Overall, Fury ended up being just an okay read for me and not a particularly solid start to this series I'd so been looking forward to. A few of the characters introduced in this book go on to get their own stories in the series. For the most part, I liked them better than Fury, so I might give the author another chance to wow me at some point. I just probably won't be in a major hurry to do so, like I'd hoped I would be.

Note: I've classified this book as erotic romance because most online book sites have it listed as such, but other than a little light bondage and a small amount of explicit language, it's pretty much on par with most steamy mainstream romances.

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Laurann Dohner

Themes

Doctors, Nurses, & Medical Professionals