Furyborn: A Whole Lot of Yes

I feel like I’ve been doused in cold water, because Furyborn by Claire Legrand is refreshing AF. I say “refreshing,” because it’s technically labeled as young adult, even thought it reads nothing like most of them. This is definitely my kind of YA book: complicated and immersive word-building, major bad-assery, heady sexual tension, and a fantastic, intricate plot.

Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

a magical world completely its own, ruthless murderers on the wake of page turn, and two poweful women

What I loved about Furyborn: 

1. First of all, this book has a world that is awesome, and truly difficult for me to describe. When I close my eyes, I think of the Ancient Greeks and Gotham City, of castles on steep cliffs and dilapidated towers scraping the sky. I can’t even begin to piece this world together for you: it’s bizarre and wonderful and confusing and unique.

2. I loved both of our main characters: Eliana and Rielle. A lot of people said that they found one or the other unlkeable. While I agree that they had their issues, I appreciated that they weren’t perfect. They had well-crafted and nicely fleshed out personalities.

3. The sexual tension in this book was a big HELL YES and had me tearing through the book like I needed the wind from the turning pages to cool me off.

4. The magic in this world was fantastic, epic, and larger than life. I adored how it was described and how it was implemented in this story.

5. Sort of superficial, but I really appreciated the uniqueness of the names that Legrand had in this novel (other than Eliana, the rest of them were not names I’ve read over and over in fantasy novels).

What Furyborn wasn’t 5 stars :

1. I felt like Eliana’s narrative was a little TOO action-packed and overall less interesting for me. Sometimes it got exhausting. View Spoiler »It was like every time a chapter ended someone new was hot on her heels trying to kill her. « Hide Spoiler

2. There are A LOT of names and places to digest in this book. This is only a minor negative for me, because honestly, I don’t feel like understanding the exact name and place of everyone/thing was that important for comprehension of this novel. But I do know that there were a number of complaints about this.

I would recommend this book to any fantasy lover. I think this book’s hype is well-deserved and I’m excited to see it soar to the top of the NYT best-seller list, as I’m sure it’s bound to do!

Without knowing anything about them, would you rather be a Blood Queen or Sun Queen? Me? I think I’d rather be a Blood Queen (the sun is just so stinking hot!).

A.S. Thornton

A.S. Thornton has evolved from book blogger to author with a particular fondness for writing forbidden love in ancient deserts. When not writing, she’s caring for dogs and cats as a veterinarian. You’ll never find animals at the center of her writing, though, because those fictional worlds don’t have veterinarians and her literal brain can’t accept that the poor critters would be without parasite prevention. Thornton’s debut, DAUGHTER OF THE SALT KING is available wherever books are sold.