Furyborn by Claire LegrandSeries: Empirium #1
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire on May 22, 2018
Genre: Angels, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 512
Source: NetGalley
Book Details
Rating: ★★★★
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.
Furyborn is a REALLY cool story with two different timelines that relate and intersect. The prologue shows you the outcome of Queen Rielle’s timeline, then chapter one takes you two years back to explain how events led up to that outcome. Then chapter two gives you Eliana’s point of view, which is a crazy 1,020 years later!
I particularly enjoyed Rielle’s timeline because it felt totally Star Wars-esque. It was like watching a Jedi be lured, manipulated, and tricked to the dark side. Particularly at the beginning, you can clearly see she’s a good person at heart. But an angel plays on her fears and insecurities to twist and confuse her.
I removed a star because the end of the book lost my love just a little bit. My biggest gripe was how much Simon (“the Wolf”) changed. He started out as a great character in Eliana’s timeline. He was a scary, mysterious, aloof assassin fighting with the rebellion. Totally “dark and dangerous”. But then at the end his character (minor spoiler) View Spoiler » . His change was a huge let down because he was one of my favourite characters in the first half.
But that being said, I’m definitely looking forward to continuing the series. I’m really excited to see how this war plays out!
Note that this book is more of an adult or new adult fantasy. There are a few risqué scenes! I actually really enjoyed the higher age range though. I think it was really appropriate for how big and intense this whole story is.
Sold! (P.S. I hope you’re doing well!)
I’m doing very well, thanks Andrea! 🙂 How are you?
I agree with you about Simon’s character, that was one of my gripes with Furyborn as well. I know that this is a polarizing book in the book blogger world, but it is nice to see another positive review as I overall enjoyed the book! Looking forward to seeing the series progress.
I’m glad you enjoyed it too! 🙂 Simon was such a bummer… grr! Oh well.
Star Wars & Angels had me like: O_O
You’re one of the few readers I’ve come across, that really loved this book. The general consensus seemed to be that it was clunky and overwhelming.
I think it feels very different from most other YA books and that might attribute to some people not clicking with it. It almost feels more like an adult fantasy. It doesn’t really have “adult content” but it has a very different vibe from other YA.