This cover? The description? I should have loved this, but noooooooo. I just could not get into this one! I gave it the good old 50 page requirement and then I decided life was too short.

This was a DNF for me. I don't know if it's how all-over-the-place this felt in the beginning, or how daunting the amount of story here seemed. But, I wasn't connecting with the characters at all. I had great hopes for this one, too.

Absolutely outstanding! I cannot wait to read book two! For some reason I didn't think I was going to end up liking this book and decided to try it out anyways. I was HOOKED! I loved every second of this book. I think what I enjoyed the most was all of the politics. It was so interesting and had me reading late into the night.

This book has received mixed reviews but I actually loved it. It was different, feministic and written really well. I cannot wait for the next book.

Loved this book and will recommend to teens and adults who read YA. Fun read for YA loving readers who like strong characters and lots of action.

I was very excited when I was approved for this book! I had read the prologue, and it sounded amazing. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. However, this is entirely my preference; it was a good book, I just didn’t like parts of it.

This book is told in dual points of view: Rielle’s and Eliana’s. Rielle lives in a kingdom, best friends with the crown prince. Eliana’s point of view is set years later, under a tyrannical empire. While I liked that we got two drastically different story lines, I struggled to read it. You know when you’re reading a really good scene and then, just when you’re about to get to a good part, it switches points of view? and you hate it? So yeah, that was kind of my problem. I loved Rielle’s parts at the beginning and hated when it switched to Eliana’s because Eliana’s storyline was kind of boring at the start. And then during the second half, it switched; Rielle’s story grew tiresome to me, but I really started getting into what was happening with Eliana.

This was honestly the reason it took me a month and a half to read this book; the premise is so cool, and I really enjoyed the worldbuilding with the angel mythology! This is one of those books with little excerpts from a book/letter/something at the beginning of the chapters, and I always find that it adds to the world a lot.

I wasn’t really into some of the romance; idk, again it’s really just a personal preference. I liked that Eliana is bisexual without making a big deal about it! However, it wasn’t immediately apparent, so I’m not entirely sure why everyone’s hailing it as THE bisexual fantasy. Maybe that will change in the next one though. And honestly (**slight spoilers but not really**) I thought Rielle easily could have been in a polyamorous relationship. But we’ll see.

Furyborn was an interesting start to a series, and I’m excited to see where it goes next. The worldbuilding is lush and the characters are written so well. Pick it up if you’re a fan of high fantasy, angels, and prophecies!

Furyborn is a ya high fantasy that follows a dual perspective from a queen in the past and a girl in the present timeline. What I enjoyed about the story was the political intrigue. Finding out how things were going to play out politically was super interesting in both timelines. Also, I thought the character development and world building were solid. The action scenes were also very engaging.

However, this was not my favorite fantasy read. The plot twist seemed pretty obvious to me and I wasn't sure if it was suppose to be a surprise to us or were we just waiting for the characters to figure it out. Also, I felt that there were some parts that were overly long AND the sex scenes were awkward.

Overall, I'm intrigued enough to continue the series because I feel the issues I had with this book will be gone in the next one and I would like to see where the central conflict is going.

This is such a great addition to supernatural angel literature. Rielle is a brilliantly written character who is easy to identify with as she navigates her struggles. Great YA read!!!

Confusing and not holding my interest. The characters could use some background or history. It's hard to identify with them otherwise and they come across as bland. I’m not going to rate it but it’s a DNF for me.

What It's About?
FURYBORN is Claire Legrand's first book in a fantasy series called Empirium, about two young women with supernatural powers beyond all measure in an alternative fantasy universe. The prologue starts off with Queen Rielle giving birth, pushing the baby into the hands of an 8-year-old angel-human hybrid named Simon (who can time travel), and then proceeding to destroy everything around her to get away from a telepathic angel, Corien. Then the chapters alternate between Rielle in the past and a young woman named Eliana 1,020 years later. Rielle lives during a time in which a select group have 1 out of 7 elemental powers, but she can master them all -- something her father and tutor have been keeping secret from the royal crown. When assassins threaten her best friend (and secret beloved) Audric, the kingdom's crown prince, Rielle uses several elements at once to save him (and kill the mercenaries after him). It turns out Rielle's powers deem her either the prophetic Sun Queen, who will save the world, or Blood Queen, who will destroy it (by handing it over to oppressed angels desperate to leave their realms). A millennium later, Eliana's world is post-ruin and run by an evil emperor, but she works for it anyhow as a well-paid bounty hunter for the Empire. When Eliana's mother is kidnapped, she teams up with a rebel faction to save her, only to discover she's now part of a thousand-year-long battle that connects her storyline to the legendary Queen Rielle's.

Is It Any Good?
An amazing prologue and intriguing premise make this series starter a riveting YA fantasy read, particularly among fans of ultrapowerful "chosen one" protagonists. Legrand's opening chapter is brilliant and sets the page-turning tone -- a baby, an evil queen, mentions of a lost love, and a battle between said queen and an even more mysterious angel. That's a compelling start if ever there was one. Once the story rewinds (for Rielle) and goes forward (for Eliana), it occasionally gets tripped up with more action than world-building (and definitely more steamy romance and sex positivity than is typical in YA books outside of, say, Sarah Maas' bestsellers), but readers will still want to barrel through to figure out what's happening and what turns Rielle into the character we meet in the opening pages.

Between the two main characters, Rielle is the more likable, even though readers know where her story "ends" from the start. At times she seems a bit too overwhelmed by desire for Audric (and even the sexy angel speaking in her mind) than worried for her world's future, but she is, after all, a teenager in love. Audric, for his part, is an earnest, handsome hero without any stereotypical bad-boy edge. That edginess is reserved for Simon, who's scarred and cryptic and has a complicated attraction to Eliana. The plot is super simple if excised from all the action sequences (a seven-part trial in the past, a rebel mission in the present). But younger readers unused to timeline changes may find it difficult to understand if they're rushing. Even after 500-plus pages, readers may not fully grasp the scope of what's at stake for Eliana's timeline, but they'll be ready for more of the Blood and Sun Queens in Book 2.

A good book is still on your mind days later. Furyborn achieves that and more. I still find myself unpacking the complicated emotions between our four central characters, even weeks after reading.

Two have not one but two fierce female POCs is a gift—and the idea to split between timelines is a stroke of genius. Some of the plot may mirror the basic YA building blocks (queen tempted by an outside force, etc) but the way Claire Legrand tells the story redeems any of those criticisms. She skillfully plays with the idea of "breaking bad" but on a timeline. We know Rielle, the queen who seems initially to be the golden and unscarred character, will ultimately end up our (sympathetic) antagonist... while watching Eliana Ferracora redeem herself. It's a story of balance and an intricate character story that is nonetheless a page-turner I couldn't put down.

If you're looking for a fast-paced but complex story, look no further.

This book was a very unique take on dark fantasy. The story is told through two POVs, Rielle and Eliana ... but the twist is: their stories take place 1,020 years apart.

What surprised me was that each chapter switched between the two POVs. Because of that reason, most chapters ended slightly "cliffhangery" and that did take some getting used to.

I thought this was a daring undertaking for the author. I won't say it was without flaws; I do feel like she could have melded the two stories together with better pacing, but I can understand why it would be a bit too difficult to do with the first book in a series. She was essentially crafting two worlds within the same world, so I have a feeling, now that the world-building is complete, that I will have a more enjoyable time with book 2.

I did enjoy this book a fair bit, but I'll be honest, I didn't LOVE it. I feel like I'm hovering between 3 and 4 stars. After contemplating it for a full day, I decided to lean a bit more towards 3 stars, regardless of how imaginative Legrand's story was. Parts if it were too drawn out for my tastes.

It was well crafted, but it was by no means an easy read. If you want something easy where you can turn your brain off and just enjoy a fast-paced book, this is not what you're looking for. You need to pay attention and dedicate time to fully lose yourself within the pages.

I had a hard time deciding which POV and story I liked better. Whenever I was reading Rielle's chapters, I would think <i>she's my favourite</i>, then I would read Eliana's chapters and think <i>nope she's my favourite</i>. It was a fun and vicious cycle. Plus, Audric and Simon were very enjoyable to read about ... especially a particular scene with Audric <i>*wiggles eyebrows suggestively*</i>. But I have to admit, the surprising standout "star" of the book was Eliana's little brother Remy. He was just so stinking cute. So cute it made me ache. So sweet I just wanted to bundle him up in my arms and protect him forever. It's a very strong author who can make you love side characters just as much (and sometimes even more) as you love the protagonists, and Legrand achieved that.

I don't think I would recommend this book to everyone, but I know for sure there is an audience for a book like this. I know several people who would become full-on obsessed with Legrand's world, and I'll very happily tell them they need to read this book.

I'll definitely be anxiously awaiting the sequel. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I read this a while ago and while going to review it on Goodreads realized I couldn't remember anything about it. So I looked at the Goodreads summary again and was like "nope still don't remember" so not a great start. I ended up having to open and skim it again just to remember anything about it and when I did I remembered why I didn't remember: it wasn't very engaging. The story was ok. The plot was fine. It just didn't really have any single thing that hooked me in and I didn't find any of the characters to be actually engaging.

This is an amazing fantasy and one of the best young adult fantasy titles I read of the year. The pace never slows down, and yet the author created rich characters with many dimensions to uncover. I can't wait to read the second installment in this series--Furyborn was a fantastic journey!

Finally able to purchase this for the school! And, the second in the series, as well. Looking forward to sharing Furyborn in the first week and watching it never be on the shelf! Two exceptional women in a story beautifully woven together by the author.

Loved the alternating timelines via alternating chapters-it made me feel like I was reading 2 books in one, but better. The alternating chapters also gave readers mini cliffhangers, but without having to wait too long to find out what happened next. I just really liked the way of presenting the story, and I am all for alternative formats of presenting storylines!

The story itself is captivating, the characters are likable, or unlikable depending and made for an easy to fall into journey.

I really wanted to love this book, but I honestly had struggles with it keeping my attention. It had all the right elements and the story intrigued me like nothing else but I just couldn't bring myself to keep reading. I read so many books surrounding the starting and completing of this one, reading mere chapters at a time. When it got going, though, it did really get going and then I finished in no time at all. I would, however, recommend to fans of this type of YA fantasy because it really was right up my alley... once I could get into it.

I liked it. It wasn’t one of my favorite good vs evil stories but there were parts that were good. The story is told in dual timelines, a thousand years apart. Rielle’s story didn’t interest me much. I would have preferred learning her story through someone telling it rather than a first person account. This is probably due to the fact that the book opens with how Rielle’s story ends and I didn’t really care to know how it got to that ending. I did find Eliana’s story to be more interesting. I probably could have skipped all of the Rielle backstory chapters and still got the whole gist of the story.

*Review can be found at https://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/*

Told in alternating points of view, hundreds of years apart, the lives of Eliana and Rielle unfold. Eliana is a hired assassin, taking on morally despicable tasks for her ruler in order to keep her brother and mother safe. But when the Wolf comes looking for her, her world implodes. Rielle has spent her life hiding what she is really capable of, the power uncontrollable and dangerous until it was unleashed and all knew of her powers. Through trials and danger, the two women battle for what is theirs, with a connection between the two no one could expect.

This was a hard complicated book book to get through, super dense and heavy. I would personally classify Furyborn as adult Fantasy, not YA, the only reason it might even be YA is due to the characters being older teens/young 20s. All of the concepts were more adult and the characters were incredibly mature, plotting their own destinies. AND there was at least one pretty detailed sex scene that does not belong in anything I would ever call YA.

I have no idea how to describe the book except it was very epic and I will continue on in the series no doubt. I had a hard time getting into the story in general, I was about 50% through before I was fully invested in the book. I really liked Eliana, I thought she was cool and intense, almost like a Celaena Sardothien type character and I loved her chapters. Rielle was harder for me to connect to since she seemed like a selfish character who made some stupid impulsive choices that cost so many, but by the end of the book I needed to know what would happen to both the women. And boy, was this a twist, dangerous, dark ride that I never saw coming, with the scariest of Angels! By the end of the book I was so into this world and messed up plot that I can't wait to jump into the next book.

What a super book!

Furyborn (Empirium #1) by Claire Legrand revolves around two amazingly independent young women, Rielle Dardenne and Eliana Ferracora, yet they live centuries apart, and need each other to save the world.

A thrilling read full of excitement and kick-ass fun! You'd be silly not to read this!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a digital ARC of “Furyborn” by Claire Legrand.