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.

Very interesting premise, at first I found it a little confusing, but as I kept reading the transition between Rielle and Eliana became easy to follow. There was almost like a third wall that was broken in a few spots, I felt like the characters were talking directly to the readers. I was definitely in for the intrigue and betrayal that did not disappoint.

I was very intrigued by the storyline in "Furyborn". The idea of following two powerful young women from different time periods and the choices they make as to whether they will use their power for good or evil was interesting, to say the least.
Rielle inadvertently exposes herself as a possible prophesied queen after saving her best friend from an assassination attempt. She is then forced to go through a series of "tests" to prove whether she is a queen of light or a queen of blood. If she fails any of the tests, it means her death.
One thousand years later, Queen Rielle is a well-known legend to a bounty hunter named Eliana. Eliana joins forces with a rebel captain after her mother vanishes and learns more is at stake than she realized.
There is a connection between the two women and storylines but I don't like to give away spoilers. I did find "Furyborn" to be one of those novels that is hard to get into at first but becomes more interesting the more you read. I also found it hard to connect or like the two women but the storyline drew me in enough that I didn't care. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. This is one series that I really want to continue reading and I am expecting the series to get better and better.

by Katie Moran
The first installment of Claire Legrand’s Emporium series, Furyborn, deals with a feud and prophecy. The dual point of view spans millennia, alternating between two powerful narrators, Rielle and Eliana, each of whom is fighting her own battle. The overall plot deals with the fine line between what is accepted and what is right. Legrand’s characters frequently must choose between sacrifice and conscience or the greater good and the easy path. These types of dynamics make each of their struggles, losses, and triumphs feel genuinely authentic to the reader.

Legrand’s artful storytelling allows each character to fully inhabit the world that they’re narrating to us. Time is the greatest barrier between the two strong story lines, and the use of time as a deviation for our main characters gives the necessary depth and clout to the overall progression of the novel. Legrand’s ability to craft a tale is portrayed in the way the author seamlessly layers Rielle and Eliana’s narratives, ensuring that each keeps pace with the other and allowing the necessary information from one to permeate and aid in our understanding of the other.

Although both of our protagonists, Eliana, the dread of Orline, and Rielle, the Sun Queen,  have faults enough to match their endurance and heart, each woman has a strong sense of remorse. The underlying tone of accountability that results o really humanizes  these larger than life characters. There are brief moments throughout when the voices of the two begin to sound minutely similar, but it would seem this was a conscious decision of Legrand’s given the relationship of the two despite the eons that stand between them.

Overall, Furyborn deals with the common yet never ending cosmic struggle between what is right and what is wrong. Legrand has done a wonderful job in creating characters able to carry the burden of such a common struggle while remaining intriguing and readable. Though there are fleeting mentions of some bisexual representation in the novel, there is little follow through on the matter. However, Furyborn is only the first installment, and there is still hope for more inclusive and well-rounded moments in the trilogy.

One of my favorite books of all time! I can already foresee myself reading this book many, many times. I loved the characters. You can never go wrong with two badass women. I loved it. Everyone just needs to read this.

Such a huge and epic tale! I love the alternating story lines and really appreciated the imminence world that was built. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

"You are the One Who Rises. The Furyborn Child. You are the Sun Queen, Eliana, and I have come to bring you home."

* * 
2 / 5

Furyborn ensnared me with its enticing title and beautiful cover and then failed to deliver. The book was overly lengthy, clocking in at over 500 pages, and was rather confusing. It seemed like it tried far too hard to be complex and just ended up being badly communicated and slightly weird.

"Do I wish you both had come to me, so we could discuss all of this like civilized people, instead of you rolling about half naked in the gardens for everyone to see? Yes."

Rielle lives in a time of magic. When it is shown that she can use more than one of the seven elements, a feat which is unheard of except in legend, she is made to undergo seven elemental trials to prove whether she is the long-expected Sun Queen or the feared Blood Queen. Eliana lives a thousand years later, when Queen Rielle is just a fairytale and so is magic. She is concerned with murder and her missing mother when a mysterious boy turns up. 

I found Furyborn to be incredibly slow going and not in the fun, wow this is epic, kind of way. I just didn't feel invested in either of the characters or their respective quests. I loved the idea of two women joined together across a thousand years, two queens tied to a mysterious prophecy, one taking up the quest of the other. What I got instead was 250 pages of Rielle doing some boring trials and swooning after the prince with some angels thrown in for good measure, and 250 pages of Eliana spouting super cringy dialogue, betraying people, with bonus serious mother issues.

"We all have darkness inside us, Rielle. That is what it means to be human."

Both women are supposed to be strong and powerful: Rielle has her magic, and Eliana has her blades and her history as a bounty hunter, putting rebels to the death. Rielle pulls it off as a powerful mage, but the magic didn't seem to make much sense to me? It isn't all that clear how it works or functions. And Rielle becomes totally off her rocker. Eliana on the other hand doesn't seem all too special. Near the start of the book she encounters a mysterious man who bests her; lots and lots and lots of terribly cringe-worthy mid-fight banter ensues. Ugh. 

Furyborn was an odd book. It had lots of fights and action-sequences, but it never seemed like anything particularly important was happening. There was lots of talk of angels and rebirth and whatnot, but not much explanation. I wasn't a big fan of the book and I won't be reading the next.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of Furyborn.

This book was a decent read. The characters were self-aware, and the plot dramatic enough when it needed to be. The beginning had great promise. Sadly, the downside to this book is that perhaps it is a tad too slow at times, which increasingly lowered my desire to finish it to the point that I almost DNF'd it. A solid backbone of a story, but it needed something more to make it "special."

This book was a decent read. The characters were self-aware, and the plot dramatic enough when it needed to be. The beginning had great promise. Sadly, the downside to this book is that perhaps it is a tad too slow at times, which increasingly lowered my desire to finish it to the point that I almost DNF'd it. A solid backbone of a story, but it needed something more to make it "special."

How do I describe my feelings for this book?

It was rough. The world building felt at times too fast and hard to keep up with and then other times, too slow and not fleshed out enough. The plot was disjointed, as a result of switching between the two drastically spaced POVs and therefore, didn't keep me turning the pages. By design, there was a tournament style set up during one of the POVs and this is always one of my least favorite things in books (I didn't realize one of the POVs would focus on it when I read the synopsis) and so those chapters were hard to get through for me, though I know some people LOVE this trope. I felt like the entire book, I was wanting something that the book wasn't delivering, at least until I got to the last 30%. Suddenly, the book picked up and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and the ending I only sort of saw coming. I ended the book still not sure if I'll pick up the second one in the series or not. Maybe I'll see if my library has it.

Disclaimer: I was provided an e-arc of this book from Netgalley. However all opinions are my own.

Great series for fans of high fantasy. The time travel element as well as the complex world building require a bit of dedication and attention to the plot and characters, but in the right hands this will be read in a night or two.

Rielle is strong and kick-butt. The tension was epically high and I couldn’t put it down. I loved the intricate world building and the trials too.

I think I have just outgrown YA. This got great reviews and seemed well-written but I just couldn't get in to it.

I received a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

FURYBORN is a YA fantasy that does not disappoint! We begin by seeing the world through the eyes of a child, Simon, where he sees his father taking care of the evil queen who has just given birth. She uses the last of her energy to fight the angel Corien and send her newly born daughter away with Simon. Simon and his father are marques, and while he tries to follow the threads to where he wants to go while holding onto the infant, he loses her in his travels. The rest of the book is told in alternating points-of-view between Rielle (the queen who gave birth before she became such) and Eliana, an assassin for the corrupt empire approximately 1000 years later.

The reader bounces back and forth between the two in each chapter, which can sometimes be disorienting- like reading two books at the same time (especially when the chapter has a cliffhanger). We follow Rielle as she endures magical trials meant to test her restraint and abilities- and to find out whether she was the foretold Sun Queen who could save the world (the prophecy: "The angels will return and bring ruin to the world. You will know this time by the rise of two human Queens- one of blood, and one of light. One with the power to save the world. One with the power to destroy it. Two Queens will ride. They will carry the power of the Seven. They will carry your fate in their hands."). We follow Eliana as she journeys to save her mother who was taken by unknown forces and her brother, who she wishes to get out of the Empire's reach.

In this world, angels are often powerful but cruel beings who are at war with humans (although some are good). People have the powers of the elements that they can conjure (one power per person typically, e.g. power over water), and the abilities vary with the amount of power they have. Rielle has a power over all the elements (the seven possible abilities) and she has so much that she is barely able to control it. In Eliana's time, these powers are a thing of the past and seen as myths of the past.

Overall, it was a really fascinating book, and I definitely want to continue with the series- as soon as possible! I do wish we had spent more time with one of the two women, as I felt that it was a little difficult to get truly entrenched in their lives/loves. However, I still really enjoyed it overall!

This book is an AMAZING fantasy read that I could ever say it. Why I just read it now? Oh, GOD! I am so annoyed with myself. I get it why everyone loves this book because I do and I could not even say, how much I enjoy my read and how it put me on the edge of my seat. How could that be? Man, my heart. I need to collect every piece of my heart after reading.

It's really great. The writing was absolutely wonderful and I am so ready for the second book.

Rating: 5 Stars

3/5 stars
It had a very gripping start. I was hooked right away. The alternation between the timelines was interesting and it was not confusing. The author has potential because her writing style was keeping me engaged. Furthermore, the book’s highlight is its universe. It is well built, especially when it comes to magic. Rielle was my favorite of the two main characters. We didn’t spend enough time with the characters from each time lines for them to get dimensions. This aspect was obvious when romance was involved. There are just simply generic males while the females try to be badass. Despite the points lost at the character category, I am looking forward to reading the next book,

The danger of ambition is a theme at the heart of many a high fantasy novel. Even if one's ambition stems from the desire to do good, fantasy novels generally warn that political ambition often engenders a far more dangerous desire, a desire for power itself. And as French politician and philosopher deLemartine argued, "absolute power corrupts the best natures"; or, as English Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great me are almost always bad men."


And if the striver in question happens to be of the female persuasion? Well, then the warnings grow even more pointed.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Romancing Female Ambition: Claire Legrand's FURYBORN

The danger of ambition is a theme at the heart of many a high fantasy novel. Even if one's ambition stems from the desire to do good, fantasy novels generally warn that political ambition often engenders a far more dangerous desire, a desire for power itself. And as French politician and philosopher deLemartine argued, "absolute power corrupts the best natures"; or, as English Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great me are almost always bad men."


And if the striver in question happens to be of the female persuasion? Well, then the warnings grow even more pointed. As Robin Romm notes in the Introduction to her essay collection Double Bind: Women on Ambition, "striving and achieving [have] to be approached delicately or you risk the negative judgment of others." Twenty-first century American women are socialized to be soft, feminine, but are simultaneously urged to "go for it," a paradox Romm describes as "the double bind of the gender, success paired eternally with scrutiny and retreat."

That is what intrigued me about the first volume in Claire Legrande's YA fantasy novel, Furyborn: its portrayal of not one, but two deeply ambitious women. After an opening scene in which a queen gives birth and then gives up her baby to prevent her from falling into the hands of a malevolent angel, Furyborn forks into two separate strands, one set in the near past, the other a thousand years into the future. The first tells how the queen of the first scene, Rielle, came to be "allied with angels and helped them kill thousands of humans. This queen who had murdered her husband" (Kindle Loc 91). The second tells of a the rise of an assassin who is asked to become a rebel against the oppressive Empire, a woman whose questionable morals make her seem just as unfit for the role of savior as was/is Rielle.

Eighteen-year-old Rielle, only daughter of Lord Commander Dardenne, chief of the king's guards, chafes against the restricted life her father condemns her to after the uncontrolled power of her magic lead to the death of her mother. As she protests to her teacher, Tal, the Grand Magister of the Pyre, the head of those who bend fire to their magical will, "If Father had his way, I'd stay locked up for the rest of my life with my nose buried in a book or on my knees in prayer, whipping myself every time I had a stray angry thought" (Kindle Loc 380). Rielle wants more than a life stuck in a cloister: she wants to participate in the Boon Chase; she wants her childhood friend Audric, now Prince Audric the Lightbringer, the mot powerful sunspinner in centuries, to love her and not their friend Ludivine; most of all, she wants to show everyone just how powerful her magic is. For unlike every other elemental who had ever lived, Rielle needs no physical object to access her power, and her magic is not limited to one element. No, Rielle can control them all.


During an assassination attempt on Prince Audric, Rielle uses her powers to save her friend, despite her father's warnings never to reveal them. And Audric becomes convinced that his old friend is one of the Light Queen of prophecy, a human woman who will rescue them all from the angels who once oppressed humankind and who threaten again:

The Gate will fall. The angels will return and bring ruin to the world. You will know this time by the rise of two human Queens—one of blood, and one of light. One with power to save the world. One with the power to destroy it. Two Queens will rise. They will carry the power of the Seven. They will carry your fate in their hands. Two Queens will rise. (1649)

Rielle is not your usual fantasy heroine, not an empty placeholder for the reader nor a troubled, misunderstood, but deeply good at heart girl. No, as Prince Audric's mother recognizes, Rielle is "Cunning. Willful, and lovely. It's a volatile combination. It unnerves me" (3400). Rielle, with her naked ambition, is meant to unnerve the reader, too. Indeed, she unnerves herself: "Even while my mother burned, I was glad to feel the power simmering at my fingers... Even though you belong to Ludivine... I want you for my own. I want... I want. I crave. I hunger" (4285). Is she the Sun Queen, the one who will save humankind? Or is she the Blood Queen, who will destroy all?

If Rielle seems a questionable savior, what are we to make of the other heroine of Furyborn? We first meet assassin Eliana Ferracora as she helps round up a group of rebels, fighting against the Empire that rose in the ashes of Rielle's betrayal of humankind. Eighteen-year-old Eliana is tempted to let the rebel children of group go, but resists: "children couldn't keep their mouths shut. And if anyone ever found out that the Dread of Orline, Lord Arkelion's pet huntress, had let traitors run free..." (648). Instead, Eliana watches as the eldest boy is beheaded.


Eliana's partner and lover Harkan wishes she were different: "Harkan paused, that sad, tired look on his face that made her hackles rise because she knew he hoped it would change her, one of these days. Make her better. Make her good again. She lifted an eyebrow. Sorry, Harkan. Good girls don't live long" (643). Calculating, skilled, and deadly, Eliana focuses on the here and now, on keeping her mother and brother safe, and herself alive. Her ambition may be narrower than Rielle's, but it still burns bright. Though people in Eliana's time call Rielle the evil Blood Queen, it's difficult to believe that Eliana is more suited to the role of Sun Queen than is/was Rielle.

Eliana knows that any day now, she'll be recruited as a member of Invictus, a company of assassins that travels the world and carries out the Emperor's bidding. For she's not just skilled; she also seemed to have an ability no one else in her world has:

The problem was, she liked showing off. If she was going to be a freak with a miraculous body that no fall could kill, then she might as well ave fun with it. If she was busy having fun, then she didn't have time to wonder why her body could do what it did. And what it meant. (552)

But after her mother mysteriously disappears, The Wolf, a famed captain of the Red Crown rebels, bargains for Eliana's help in infiltrating the palace in exchange for his help in finding her missing parent. Coldly weighing both the costs and the benefits, Eliana agrees, looking out all the while for how to shimmy free of any acts, or any personal connections, not promoting her own safety or that of her mother and brother. She even accepts poor Harkan's self-sacrifice, leaving him behind in order to save herself and her brother.

One of the other rebel leaders tries to convince Eliana that "Revolutions mean nothing if their soldiers forget to care for the people they're fighting to save," but Eliana has more than her share of doubts (2609). Somehow familiar with the trajectory of the typical fantasy romance, she knows that she's supposed to be transformed by her time with the rebels, especially by her admiration for The Wolf, known to her now as Simon, a man who has endured much during his battles against the oppressive Empire. "People like us don't fight for our own hope... We fight for everyone else's," Simon nobly avers, but wily Eliana uses his own hope in her redemption to deceive him (2964).

At the end of this first installment, both Rielle's and Eliana's worlds are on the verge of war: Rielle's against the resurgent angels, Eliana's against the invading Undying Empire. Can either war be prevented? Will either young woman be Sun Queen? Or will both fall into the temptations of blood?

Or might the stark binaries of the prophecy be pushed aside, the opposition between sun and blood, self-focused ambition and other-directed empathy, shown to be equally necessary in order to defeat true evil?

I'm gnawing on my fingernails, waiting to see what the next two volumes in the trilogy have to say about women and ambition and power.

This book felt more adult than YA to me, but I loved it! The premise is so unique and the world felt epic in scale and intensely real at the same time.

Disclaimer: I received an e-arc from Netgalley and the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Book 1 of the Empirium Series

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: May 22, 2018

Genre: YA Fantasy

Recommended Age: 16+ (suicide, language, child murder, attempted rape, sex, demons/angels, possession)

Publisher: Sourcefire Books

Pages: 501

Amazon Link

Synopsis: The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 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, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart 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.

Review: Overall, I thought this was a pretty good high fantasy read. The world building was really well done, the character development for the main characters were amazing, and the plot was interesting. I really liked how the author used duel POVs to further the plot. The concept was really interesting, even if I figured out the twist after chapter 1.

However, the book is really clunky. There’s a LOT going on in the book and I don’t think the book really explains what all is going on well enough. The pacing is super slow as well. I feel that the book really could have done better if it had a prologue explaining some of the angel/demon stuff and possession stuff. I felt really confused by that aspect.

Verdict: As a high fantasy novel, I feel this is really good. But definitely should not be someone’s first high fantasy book.

Though this book was good & creative with interesting characters, what took me out of the story so much that I could barely enjoy it was the frequency that the POVs were changed.
This is told in 2 different timelines, with very little that actually connected the two of them & warranted them being one story. So the fact that the chapters were fairly short & the POV changed for every chapter made it so hard to stay invested in either of the storylines.
This could have been so much better as 2 separate books or with the POV not being broken up as frequently.
Also, I felt as if the world building could have been more present, because we have 2 different timelines where the world didn’t appear to have any differences at all.