I DNF'd this book. Twice. The first time I tried to read it was when I received this ARC and I just couldn't do it. I tried again a second time after the audiobook was released as it was read by my favorite narrator and I though that would help, but to no avail. My biggest problem was with the character of Eliana. Her arrogance was unbearable. I don't know if I have ever disliked an MC as much as I did her. I would have been curious to find out more about the other MC's story, but I couldn't do it. I love the idea of the two separate story lines set years apart and coming together to tell one larger story, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

I LOVED THIS BOOK and it is amazing and glorious and I can't wait for book 2 to arrive!! Thank you for letting me read this one early!

Furyborn takes the reader in between two timelines and two girls, both of them connected through the power they try to keep hidden from others.

Rielle struggles not to let her power consume her own self, her willpower and every emotional instinct she has in her life. When her real nature is discovered, her king and the church decide she has to be tested to determine whether she is someone who needs to be destroyed, contained or embraced.

When it comes to Rielle the real question is which powerful queen she really represents. The prophecies are open to a lot of different interpretations.The Blood Queen represents destruction and the Sun Queen represents light and life. At times I don't think she knows or doesn't want to know which part of the prophecy applies to her. The truth could destroy everything and everyone she truly cares for.

Rielle's story takes us through the events that lead to the story of Eliana. The story of Eliana is pulled in two directions, as her true identity is revealed, and takes place simultaneously as she is forced to evaluate her loyalties and her choices up to that point.

Being a killer comes naturally to Eliana, something she has never thought about before until someone who knows her true identity makes her wonder about where this instinct comes from. Does she kill because she has to or because she enjoys the kill? Her own hypocrisy is shoved in her face, as her family is threatened by a mysterious invisible evil force in their own home.

Legrand is a very creative writer, and if this first part of the trilogy is any indication of what is to come then readers are in for a treat. It encompasses elements of both epic and urban fantasy. The world-building is incredibly intricate, the characters are riveting and full of depth. It is a premise with a lot of potential and room for development. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Great for any HS library collection or teen collection. Young Adult Fantasy readers will love this title.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand is the story of two queens. A Sun Queen and a Blood Queen. One of these Queens will save the world, the other will bring it to its end. The prophecy has no idea when these queens will come, just that they will, and they need to figure out which queen is which so that the queen who will end the world can be killed before the prophecy comes to light.

Each queen that is born will have the power to control all of the elements. When it comes to light that Reille, a friend of the crowned prince, possesses more than one element, she is put to the test to see if she is, in fact, on of the queens. This test will also prove which queen she is.

The other end of the story is from the point of view of Eliana. She is pretty much an assassin. She takes jokes for money and so that her family is protected. She thinks she is untouchable until the person that is kidnapping women in her city takes her mother. She is hired to find this other assassin but things go wrong and she ends up teaming up with him instead, to find her mother and figure out who is kidnapping all these women and why.

this story is so fun and full of action and lore. It is a little bit much at first but once you wrap your head around everything you will love the book. There are so many aspects to this story and the plot line is so incredible.

There is something this book had that I really wasn’t expecting and that is time-travel. I am not a big fan of time-travel at all but the author did it very well for this story and it fits in very well with the plot so I didn’t have a hard time with it.

In the end, I greatly enjoyed this entire story. I was a little confused at the beginning with all the back and forth between the storylines. Both main female characters seemed like the same person to me, but there is a really good reason for that and it is definitely explained. I cannot want for the next book in the series to see where it takes these characters.


Overall, I gave the book 4.5/5 stars.

3.5 Stars because it didn’t start getting interesting until 70% ish

This book follows to characters many years apart as well as a legend/myth about two different queens that will rise; a queen of light and a queen of blood/dark (I cannot remember).
While reading this book its obvious who the two queens are and how they relate to each other and the story so as a reader you are just learning about the history of this world and how it effects the present day character Eliana. I found the first 70% of the book dragging. There was a lot of history to cover. Explaining how the character from he past Rielle became queen and how she learned to use her powers. Eliana is on a mission to find her missing mother and makes a lot of rash decisions but also gets wrapped up and commissioned to assist on another mission. I found what was going on with Rielle more interesting that Eliana and wanted to just skip Eliana's chapters.
Near the end of the book, it got much more grabbing wanting to know how things officially led to what you read in the prologue as well as what will happen with Eliana's character. I thought the little love story in Eliana's chapters were weird and didnt make sense to me. But the way it all wrapped up did make me pleased to know that this will be a series and there will be more to it. I liked the angels aspect in this world too, it added a great element to the plot and I'm very interested to see what else is to come. i think this book just had the first book drag, where it had a lot to explain and layout before it can move further with the story.

LET ME FINALLY YELL AT YOU ABOUT HOW GOOD #FURYBORN IS 🙌 Brilliant start to a really interesting new series. I really loved the world (in both timelines) plus ELEMENTAL MAGIC!!! ☀️🔥🌪🍃💧🌑 So excited to see where these characters go next 😁

I fortunately met Claire in May at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore. I bought this book as well. I found the writing to be refreshing. I love the idea of meeting two queens separated by time and passion. I found myself getting lost in their world. Claire does amazing world building and she created characters that you feel for. I would recommend this novel and the future of this series!

A story crossing two lifetimes and centuries apart, Furyborn is a thoroughly engrossing read. Claire Legrand creates a world with a rich history that we see playing out simultaneously as the future unfolds. The twists lead you questioning everything you thought you knew to be true. A prophecy binds our two heroines across these centuries that they both struggle against. These two are at once very similar and yet completely different. They have different backgrounds because of how the history of one leads to the future of the other. Yet they are both fighting to protect the ones they love and try to bring about a better future than the one prophesied.
A good story for older teens and young adult types, not so much for the younger set. There is a lot of violence as the title might suggest, but it doesn't overwhelm the story. A very enjoyable read.

Fury Born is full of magic, lore, and politics. Legrand puts forth two incredible, strong, badass female leads. The action is beautiful, the relationships enthralling. Loved this novel start to finish.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own!*

The main reason why FURYBORN caught my eye (apart from having an awesome cover) was because of the concept -- two characters share the same destiny even though they live a thousand years apart. I was excited to see where this book would take me because it seemed to me that there would be endless possibilities...

And let me tell you, the OPENING SCENE of this book was ONE OF THE BEST PIECES OF YOUNG ADULT WRITING I HAVE EVER READ. It was violent and dramatic and heavenly and evil - I could feel the palace shaking, I could hear the angels screaming, I could picture the queen's corrupted power. It was EPIC. I was so incredibly impressed and wanted to know EVERYTHING about Rielle and how she got to this point...

But the more I read, the more my disappointment settled.

I loved Rielle and continued to love Rielle throughout all of her chapters. But Eliana's characterisation was awful. I could not stand her! She had no depth - she was basically a shallow copying of a Sarah J Maas "strong female character", i.e. a female character with a whole lot of undeserved strength and speciality, but no flaws! It was such a shame because I really enjoyed all of the other characters and the world and the plot (even though the writing was incredibly simple), but I could not bring myself to read Eliana's chapters.

What would have made this book more enjoyable was if Eliana was given the same depth as Rielle (since their chapters literally alternate).

Overall, though, Rielle's fierceness and the world-building (and that opening scene omg) bumped my rating up to 3/5 stars

I think my main issue with this book and the one I couldn’t see past was that I was constantly thinking what the actual plot of this book was. There were two story lines, and a lot of sub plots regarding each main character, but I didn’t see what connection they had with each other apart from the obvious thing you learnt at the very beginning. Neither of those characters had anything in common, and sometimes I felt like I was reading two complete stories because of that.

The characters weren’t bad, but also I didn’t connect with them as much as I wanted. I must say my favorite out of both of them was Rielle, because I feel she was the one we knew most about. Her chapters added much more information about what the book was about (but not much), and also I got to see and learn more about the magic system and elemental magic. Eliana’s chapters were much slower and not much was happening, and I didn’t start to like her more until the very end of the book.

I was just wishing to know more about the world and those characters and how each of them could connect with the bigger story line, because there were a lot of characters and subplots but apart from that not much was happening. I couldn’t connect with most of the cast of characters, and it took me most of the book to start to like their development, which was so sad.

The story was quite lineal and I found the world building quite lacking. I still don’t know much about the angels or the reason they are the bad ones, and to be frankly honest, I couldn’t see much about the world, but a few glimpses when Eliana was traveling. However, I really enjoyed the writing style , though I must say I was a bit confused when the characters cursed, and also weird, but that was just me.

Like I said before, the story was so lineal and I felt nothing was really happening. And let me tell you the book is very long, so I expected to see more information or at least, more action packed scenes, but sadly it was all quite disappointing.

Overall, it wasn’t my type of book. I had a lot of issues with the characters and the plot, and though I liked the writing, everything was a bit anticlimactic.

The story was great! Angels and magic used in a whole new way! It was intriguing, keeping me interested in what was going to happen next! What I didn't enjoy was the back and forth between characters. While this typically doesn't bother me, I feel it was the different times that kept throwing me off in the story. Overall though, it was an excellent book! Looking forward to the next!

I think maybe I just am not the right audience for this book. While I found the story entertaining, I was a bit annoyed by the characters and some of their choices. I put that down to my age, however, as I am quite a bit older than the target reader, and I tend to find real teenagers to be a bit annoying at times. So perhaps it's down to how realistic the writing actually is. I will say I think teens will really love the book, and the writing itself was quite good.

❝ “We all have darkness inside us, Rielle,” he said, his voice rough. “That is what it means to be human.” ❞

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own!

I didn’t know too much going into Furyborn. I thought the cover was gorgeous and I had heard mention of the book from the book community. So it was a pleasant surprise when I read the synopsis and realized that this fantasy had some similar elements to another series I’m a huge fan of (e.g. Throne of Glass). I was definitely pulled in by the promise of a female assassin/bounty hunter. I also liked that we had fantasy elements being hinted at with Rielle’s story. And although I had fun reading this book I also had some issues with it.

Furyborn is told from two points of view (Rielle and Eliana) which are a thousand years apart. This was something I both liked and disliked for a couple reasons. When you first jump into the book you enter an intriguing fantasy world where people are able to manipulate one of seven elements. You have Rielle who is helplessly in love with someone who can’t be hers and is hiding a dangerous secret. It’s interesting, it pulls you in… and then you jump a thousand years forward to Eliana’s point of view where magic no longer exists and everyone is simply trying to survive the Emperor’s conquest. It’s a little jarring.

It also left me with so many questions and in a way that was good because it drove me to keep reading because I had to keep waiting to find out what happened with one character or the other, but it was also a little annoying. Most of the time I was more interested in finding out what happened to Rielle so Eliana’s chapters were kind of an obstacle to me in that way. Again, the format of the story had its pros and cons, but I can at least say that the story was never boring.

Between the two main characters, Rielle was my favorite. I loved her fierce spirit and loyalty to her friends. She was very perceptive of her words and actions would be interpreted, and could read other people well too. She was different from other women I think in that she had that passion and spirit that kept her from being docile. She was a strong character and I felt sympathetic to her situation. I was rooting for her the whole way through her trials and the one question that kept coming back to me was this: how did things go so wrong? You’ll find out what I’m talking about in chapter two, it’s not a very big spoiler but still, I’ll let you find out for yourselves.

❝ “People like us don’t fight for our own hope,” he said quietly. “We fight for everyone else’s.” ❞

Now, that isn’t to say that Eliana was a bad character. I just didn’t enjoy her storyline as much as the super fun fantasy, magic, life-or-death trials storyline of Rielle. It just felt like so much more was at stake for Rielle even though you kind of find out her fate at the beginning of the book. But anyway, back to Eliana. I thought Eliana was a little… annoying? She tried very hard to make herself come off as a bad person when really she wasn’t. She tried hard to be tough, ruthless, selfish, but then she showed her soft side when it came to her family.

There was one point where I did get really frustrated with her, and that was when she decided to betray some people to protect her family (surprise, surprise) but then later when the people she betrayed killed innocents to ensure the secrets she was giving away didn’t get out she was suddenly so against killing. It was really annoying because her betraying the group was going to lead to innocent people dying too, but only afterward did she care about it. I don’t know. It was just weird faulty logic and either way she caused so many more people to be hurt. I just hated her decision making there.

And finally, I’d like to touch on the plot and pacing. Mainly, about how the formatting impacted the story. I feel like at times, the story took a hit because of the alternating points of view. It made the progression of both Eliana and Rielle’s story feel like it dragged on (that’s not even acknowledging the fact that this was almost a 500-page book). I think it was an ambitious project to take on essentially two separate storylines in one book and it wasn’t perfect, but it was still good. I also loved the way that both storylines fit together. When you have that 1000 year gap it leaves you wondering how these two characters fit together and I think the way that it was explained was interesting and made me excited for the next book.

So overall, I think this was a book with a couple issues, but the story was still interesting enough to keep me invested in it. Hopefully, the next book will be even better!

I found this book a little hard to get in to. It was worth it to keep reading as the story was fantastic but there are definitely slow pieces that you have to force yourself through. Reille is a fantastic character and really could have the book exclusively been about her and it would have been interesting. The tie in of Eliana’s story was also great. It at times felt like it should be two separate stories but the amalgamation was needed to fully understand both girls. I enjoyed this book a lot, but definitely struggled with it as well.

I was so excited about this book, I got the ebook from NetGalley, and the ARC from ALA Mid-Winter. Best choice ever!

Get lost in a world very different from our own. The alternating POV gives readers a much grander view than had they been limited to just one character. I'm even more excited to learn more about this world and the characters that live in it.

Furyborn is one of those debuts that has had a HUGE amount of publisher push behind it so it ended up being hyped to the max. I quite often have problems with books like this because my expectations are sky high and therefore almost impossible to reach. I hate to say it thats definitely what happened here, the story was good but it just never reached the heights I was looking for so I came away disappointed.

The story is told from two points of view with the chapters alternating between the characters. First you have Rielle, a young girl who has spent her life keeping her powers secret but who risks everything to save the life of the boy she loves. She is immediately the easiest of the characters to relate to and I was really hoping to see her get the happily ever after she deserves but the biggest problem is that her story is set 1000 years in the past and you know from the prologue how her journey is going to end. Yes we have questions about how she ended up in that situation but there is absolutely no sense of mystery about how things will turn out for her. I think giving so much away so early on pretty much ruined her story for me because I was always waiting for the shoe to drop.

The other main character is Eliana and unfortunately she was much harder to like. I could understand her motivations in trying to keep her family and friends safe but the way she's happy to walk all over anyone who stands in her way makes it hard to respect her. She does grow and change throughout the story but I still feel more invested in the people around her than I do in her. One thing I do enjoy is the strong friendships that both of the main characters have, there are some really great side characters here that I'd definitely like to see more of.

Furyborn is an action packed story, there is always something major happening in each different plot thread and you're often left on a cliffhanger for one girl's story before diving back into the other. This works really well to a certain extent but after a while it starts to feel like this is all action and no character development. There were times when I felt the story would have benefitted from slowing down a little to let us have time to get to know the characters better and then perhaps I could have felt more connected to them.

Overall this wasn't a bad book, it was fun to read and I flew through it fairly quickly for such a long book, but at the same time it wasn't perfect. It did hold my attention enough that I want to read the sequel but I'm really hoping to see some big changes in the characters as they start to understand exactly what is happening around them.

Furyborn is one of those debuts that has had a HUGE amount of publisher push behind it so it ended up being hyped to the max. I quite often have problems with books like this because my expectations are sky high and therefore almost impossible to reach. I hate to say it thats definitely what happened here, the story was good but it just never reached the heights I was looking for so I came away disappointed.

The story is told from two points of view with the chapters alternating between the characters. First you have Rielle, a young girl who has spent her life keeping her powers secret but who risks everything to save the life of the boy she loves. She is immediately the easiest of the characters to relate to and I was really hoping to see her get the happily ever after she deserves but the biggest problem is that her story is set 1000 years in the past and you know from the prologue how her journey is going to end. Yes we have questions about how she ended up in that situation but there is absolutely no sense of mystery about how things will turn out for her. I think giving so much away so early on pretty much ruined her story for me because I was always waiting for the shoe to drop.

The other main character is Eliana and unfortunately she was much harder to like. I could understand her motivations in trying to keep her family and friends safe but the way she's happy to walk all over anyone who stands in her way makes it hard to respect her. She does grow and change throughout the story but I still feel more invested in the people around her than I do in her. One thing I do enjoy is the strong friendships that both of the main characters have, there are some really great side characters here that I'd definitely like to see more of.

Furyborn is an action packed story, there is always something major happening in each different plot thread and you're often left on a cliffhanger for one girl's story before diving back into the other. This works really well to a certain extent but after a while it starts to feel like this is all action and no character development. There were times when I felt the story would have benefitted from slowing down a little to let us have time to get to know the characters better and then perhaps I could have felt more connected to them.

Overall this wasn't a bad book, it was fun to read and I flew through it fairly quickly for such a long book, but at the same time it wasn't perfect. It did hold my attention enough that I want to read the sequel but I'm really hoping to see some big changes in the characters as they start to understand exactly what is happening around them.

Furyborn is a beautiful story that transcends time. The linkage, and the relatability of these characters are amazing and beautiful especially since they are in such a interesting world that is so far from our own.