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WORK TITLE: Fury’s Bridge
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WEBSITE: https://breywillows.com/
CITY: England
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COUNTRY: United Kingdom
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https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/authors/brey-willows-257
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PERSONAL
Female.
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CAREER
Writer and editor. Runs a social enterprise working with marginalized communities on writing projects.
AVOCATIONS:Exploring castles and ancient ruins, traveling, reading literature and the classics.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Brey Williams is a writer and editor. She runs a social enterprise working with marginalized communities on writing projects. She writes short stories and edits others’ writings. Williams lives in middle England with her partner.
Fury’s Bridge tells the story of a romance that develops between a human and a Greek god. Set in modern day Santa Monica, the book imagines a world in which Greek gods exist among modern humans, fighting to keep believers faithful. The gods are those of Greek tradition, along with some more modern additions. The group of gods carry out their work on an enormous campus in Santa Monica, California, which has offices and accommodation suites. Here, they can attend to the difficult task of maintaining believers across the world.
The premise of the book is the notion that gods are brought into being and sustained by the faith of the humans who worship or pray to them. Accordingly, if humans cease worshiping the god or gods, they will no longer exist. This idea is grounding in religious study and can be found in many belief systems throughout history.
The gods that completely lose their followers disappear forever. Many of the remaining gods fight to stay in existence, while others have integrated themselves into modern life. Protagonist Alecto, or Alec, has been tasked with finding a way to slow down or prevent the loss of faith, to keep herself and her companions in existence. As a relatively lesser known mythical god, one of the three Furies of Aeneid, Iliad, and Inferno fame, Alec has a difficult job before her. In addition to this responsibility, Alec must also find a woman described in a prophesy to be the one human that can help her.
While pretending to be a candidate for a theology professor position at a college in Santa Monika, Alec runs into Selene, the atheist philosophy professor who encourages her students to leave belief systems in the past. Selene is unhappy in her current relationship, and finds comfort in Alec. The two start an unexpected friendship. As their friendship transforms into a romance, Alec realizes that Selene is the prophesied human whose help she must acquire in order to prevent herself and the other gods from disappearing forever.
A contributor to The Good, The Bad, and The Unread website described Fury’s Bridge as “an imaginative, well-thought-out take on religion and mythology, with a lot of consideration given to how millennia-old beings might cope in the rapidly changing modern world,” but noted that “the execution of the main plot fell a little flat.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of Fury’s Bridge, p. 53.
ONLINE
Good, The Bad, and The Unread, http://goodbadandunread.com (May 20, 2017), review of Fury’s Bridge.*
Brey Willows
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Brey Willows is a longtime editor and writer. When she’s not running a social enterprise working with marginalized communities on writing projects, she’s editing other people’s writing or doing her own. She lives in the middle of England with her partner and fellow author and spends entirely too much time exploring castles and ancient ruins while bemoaning the rain.
About Brey
Official Bio:
Brey Willows is a longtime editor and writer. Her passion is literature and the classics, and she has published a handful of short stories. When she’s not running a social enterprise working with marginalized communities on writing projects, she’s editing other people’s writing or doing her own. She lives in the middle of England with her partner and fellow author and spends entirely too much time exploring castles and ancient ruins while bemoaning the rain.
Unofficial Bio:
I’m a nerd. I love Harry Potter, most anything by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and Lord of the Rings. (I want to be an elf but I’m built like a dwarf.) I’m an avid animated movie fan and will always choose a cartoon over pretty much anything else, unless it contains mythology of some sort. I’m a travel fiend; I love going to new countries, exploring, and attempting (mostly poorly) the language. I’m a pseudo vegetarian and migraine sufferer. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series by Jaquiline Carey is my all time favorite series, and I love the way Iris Murdoch puts sentences together. I’m an absolute introvert, horribly awkward around other humans, and I only drink Guinness.
Fury's Bridge
Publishers Weekly. 264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p53.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Fury's Bridge
Brey Willows. Bold Strokes, $16.95 trade
paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-62639-841-2
Selene Perkton is a present-day college philosophy professor in Santa Monica, Calif. Alec Graves, aka Alecto, is one of the furies, 5,000-year-old Greek mythological beings whose depiction here is akin to avenging angels. The oracular fates have declared that Selene is the only one who can save the gods from fading into the mists of human unbelief, and it's Alec's job to get her to do it, even though Selene is an atheist and Alec is relatively low in the pantheon's hierarchy. Willows' debut paranormal romance is cute and friendly, though it starts slowly and the fate-of-worlds plot feels routine. Alec and Selene salvage some of the book with enjoyable banter and believable sparks, but that doesn't make up for an overall impression of thinness and lack of detail; there's no sense of why a romance between a human and a fury might present some unique challenges beyond an atheist's general struggle to believe in gods. Those hoping for a deep dive into the nuances of Greek mythology will be disappointed. (Mar.)
REVIEW: Fury’s Bridge by Brey Willows
by Stevie | May 20, 2017 | Review |
Book CoverStevie‘s review of Fury’s Bridge (Afterlife, Inc, Book 1) by Brey Willows
Lesbian Paranormal Romance published by Bold Strokes Books 14 Mar 17
I have a slightly uneasy relationship with books that draw on Greek mythology in a modern setting. Some work really well for me, but others just make me cross. This novel’s blurb drew me in however, especially since it drew on the legends of the Furies, rather than the flashier, better known gods and goddesses. Then, once I started reading, I discovered that the story itself draws on some very wide influences across the whole spectrum of past and current belief systems, with the idea that gods are brought into being, and then sustained, by the faith of the humans who worship them, or who call upon their names. So far, so good.
The gods of old, and a few more modern entities, have joined forces and now work out of one huge campus of office and accommodation suites in Santa Monica. This enables them to keep up with the demands of an increasingly scattered, mostly dwindling, pool of believers, but some still cannot be sustained by the faith of their remaining flocks and fade from existence, while others have integrated with the human world to a much greater extent, and got themselves normal jobs and homes away from the main buildings. Recently, however, it appears that more gods are disappearing, and at a greater rate, than ever before, so Alec, one of the three avenging sisters known as The Furies, has been tasked with finding a way of slowing the decline of her companions, and with tracking down the subject of a prophesy on the issue.
That subject turns out to be Selene, a philosophy professor who has no time for what she considers outdated beliefs, and who encourages her students to think likewise. Just as she’s realising that her current relationship is never going to satisfy her, Selene bumps into Alec – posing as a candidate for the new theology professorship on Selene’s campus – and the two strike up an unlikely friendship that slowly turns into a romance. Meanwhile, a fellow philosopher – and pop icon – invites Selene to join him in educating the public with the aim of creating a new movement based on logic rather than superstition. Obviously he’s up to no good…
This was an imaginative, well-thought-out take on religion and mythology, with a lot of consideration given to how millennia-old beings might cope in the rapidly changing modern world. Ultimately, however, the execution of the main plot fell a little flat, and it felt a little too much like the pilot episode of a series rather than an action movie in its own right. This being a new (or at least new-to-me) author, however, I’m very tempted to stick around and give the next in the series a chance to redeem things when it comes out.
Stevies CatGrade: C
Summary:
If you knew the gods worked from a building in Santa Monica, California, would it change you?
Avenging fury Alectho (Alec) Graves has been tasked with saving the world, when she isn’t out seeking justice for those innocents who suffer at the hands of evil-doers. If she fails in her mission, those she loves will cease to exist.
Selene Perkton is a philosophy professor in Los Angeles. She lives an ordinary, well scheduled life, and knows her place in it. When Alec appears, the world she thought she knew becomes a very different place.