Natalie Haynes „The Amber Fury“

Natalie Haynes works as a writer, broadcaster, reviewer, and classicist. “The Amber Fury” is her first novel.

Alex Morris, the protagonist, flees London after the tragic death of her fiancé and moves to Edinburgh where she studied and began her career as a director at the theatre. With the help of her former professor, she starts to teach at a school that takes on pupils that have been expelled from other schools.

Although Alex finds her work quite hard, she gets especially involved in one of her classes of fourth-years, five students, aged 15, three girls, Mel, Carly, and Annika, and two boys, Ricky and Jono. She starts to read classical Greek tragedies with them, and her students can relate to the myths of Oedipus, Electra and the like, they see their own personal tragedies reflected in these stories of broken families, fate, and revenge.

Especially Mel, who is almost deaf, takes a keen interest in Alex. She follows her advice and starts a diary which is also includes in the novel. Eventually, Mel starts to follow Alex, who travels to London every Saturday, and finds out what happened to her.

Alex was betrothed to Luke, who intervened when he saw a man attacking his girlfriend and was stabbed by him. The murderer serves a very short term in prison, only 18 months, and will be released soon. Mel also finds out that the place Alex visits in London is the café where the murderer’s girlfriend lives.

When Alex learns about the fact that the man who murdered her fiancé will be soon out of prison, she feels the need for revenge. She goes to London to kill his girlfriend, to do the same to him that he did to her, make him suffer the same loss. Mel follows her and the act of revenge ends like a classical tragedy.

Natalie Haynes is an expert on classical myths and literature. The way she combines the troubled fates of a teenager and her teacher with classical myths is impressive. Fate and revenge seem to be the forces driving human beings to total destruction - now as well as 3000 years ago – or will Alex and Mel be able to resist these archetypal patterns.

A brilliant read full of tension and revelations.

Prof. Münzer-Jordan