The Mythology of Fury's Kiss


The Mythology of Fury’s Kiss

Nicola R. White

When I started writing Fury’s Kiss, I had a scene in mind—a young woman who’d been wronged and was hell-bent on revenge—and I knew I wanted to write about the paranormal. (My husband calls me morbid.)  So it was only natural that I turned to one of the oldest, most badass female revenge stories I could think of—the Furies.

Once I started reading about the Furies (or the Erinyes, as they were called in ancient Greece), I couldn’t get enough. The Fury who bonds with the heroine of Fury’s Kiss, Tara Walker, is my interpretation of how an ancient goddess of vengeance would react to waking up in modern-day America after centuries of being stuck in limbo. And when I learned about Alecto, I knew I’d found my monster.

(Alecto is one of the few Furies identified by name in Greek mythology. She was scary as hell!)

So where did the Furies come from? Some sources say they were created by Nyx, the goddess of night. But my favourite origin story is much more gruesome: some ancient Greek storytellers claimed that the Furies were born from drops of blood that fell into the sea when the Titan Cronos castrated his father. (It turns out Greek gods are always trying to kill and maim each other!)

I used some of the existing mythology to build the world of the New England Furies, but I also had a lot of fun mixing things up and coming up with my own take on the old legends. Want to know how Alecto copes with the strange new world she finds herself in? And how Tara deals with having her whole life turned upside down?


Check out Fury’s Kiss to find out!


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