Fury is a surprise. A story where there are very few “good guys” and where mistakes, understandable, human, or terrible, weave through the plot and push the story towards a cliff-hanger of a conclusion. Fury’s world is full of the sort of justice that proves just how difficult it can be to even the score and the sort of danger found in even the smallest mistake.

In Ascension, Maine, it’s winter break and Emily Winters is in the midst of a serious crush on a boy. The sort that makes your pulse flutter and tongue tie itself in a knot. But he’s out of reach, her best friend’s boyfriend, and the sudden death of a girl she knows makes Emily think about chances, and hurting others, and what it means to decide to do something that might only feel right at the time.

Across town, Chase is struggling with his own reactions to the death. The girl who died was once a friend, a friend he betrayed on his quest to join the popular crowd, and he is struggling with the reality that his choices may have pushed someone to the limits of their endurance. Chase spends some of his time carefully hiding the fact that his family comes from the poor side of town, and even more of it managing an image that has become more important than his happiness or self-respect.

Fury’s chapters alternate between Emily and Chase, and, as the decisions they make draw them deeper and deeper into trouble and terror, the tension between their two lives increases the suspense level of the story. Being a teenager is difficult enough, making decisions is always a chore, but the sorts of trouble that Emily and Chase get into have repercussions far beyond missed homework and slighty hurt feelings.

And that brings us to the Furies. They are quite difficult to pin down in this book, and exist in the shadows and on the edges, pushing for decisions, judging past mistakes. They demand justice and require punishment to be meted out. And they have a different, a very different, way of deciding what “fair” really means.

Fury is a début novel, and the first in a series (and with an ending that guarantees that readers will want to read the next book). Elizabeth Miles has written about mistakes that nearly any teenager could make, and the fate that they may tempt in the process.