Kasey McKenzie – Blackhearted Betrayal

The third book in the Shades of Fury series, published June 26, 2012.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: nice, strong



As a Fury, Riss Holloway belongs to an arcane race that has meted out justice since time immemorial. As Boston's Chief Magical Investigator, she's responsible for solving any crimes committed by or against supernaturals. But now that she's going home, Riss has no idea just how dangerous--and personal--the crimes have become.
Riss Holloway has taken a leave of absence from her mortal job as Chief Magical Investigator for the Boston PD. Right now she's determined to focus on her Fury duties: like assisting her mother with an unsettling friction brewing in the Sisterhood--a faction of Furies sworn to serve all the Deities equally. Until now.
Someone is playing favorites. As a result Riss is ushered into a tumultuous civil war--and not one just tearing apart the Sisterhood, but one embroiling every god and goddess into the chaos as well. What was once a precept, to stand as a united whole policing arcanekind for millennia, has been divided by something Riss never imagined--and choosing sides could be the most dangerous move she's ever made.


After solving her serial killer case in the previous book, Marissa is finally free to join her mother in the Fury’s realm, and have her young niece acknowledged in the Sisterhood of Furies.
Instead, both she and her mother are being summoned by the Triad, the three Gods who rule the other Gods, to act as their Nemesis against a fellow God who is breaking the law. He is gathering other minor gods, and making them his vasals, and he is binding Fury’s to him, while they should be serving all Deities equally. He is behind the breach in the Sisterhood, and the attacks on Marissa lately.
The bad thing is, he is Anubis, the personal god of her lover Scott and his Warhounds. Will he be able to choose between his love for her and his duty to his God? Even if that God has broken the arcane laws bigtime?
Marissa has had a bad run-in with Anubis before, and he has promised to kill her slowly when they meet again. But Marissa will fight for good always, and so, with a chosen group of friends and Fury’s, she enters the Underworld to find proof of his misdeeds to bring to the Triad.

And what she finds there, is so much worse than she could have imagined, especially when one of the Triad itself is a traitor and has become Anubis’ lover.


I loved this adventure, and was glued to the pages until the book was finished. The intrigue was so well written, and I am glad that I was right in my suspicions about Scott’s younger brother from book 1. The battle scene was awesome, and not everyone survives it, but it was very well written and I wish I could join them. Marissa’s friends Charlie the Giant and Sahana are wonderful to read about, and a real asset in their journey.

If you like your Urban Fantasy a bit different from the usual werewolves and vampires, you really should try this series.

The ending hints at the next story, but as far as I can find out, it has not been written yet. The author’s website is really outdated, but she has written some other books, out on Kindly only, so I do fear the publisher pulled the plug on this one.

9 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian