Furyborn (The Empirium #1) by Claire Legrand

Furyborn by Claire Legrand is a YA Fantasy story of assassins, fierce females, and rebels.

“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.”

This book has its ups and downs for me.

With all the hype surrounding this series, I was so excited to finally get to it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as into the story as I had hoped.

The first few chapters started out pretty strong for me. The mysterious Queen and all the evil accusations against her had me wanting to find out more.

There are two POVs in this story, and it took me FOREVER to get them straight. I had to look back at the chapter headings multiple times to really see who I was reading. Eventually, as the characters developed more, I was able to find more distinctions between the two leading me to read the story faster.

Overall, this was more of a confusing book to follow.

The plot was unique and a fierce fantasy with all the elements of a great start to a series. I gave this one 3 out of 5 stars due to the characters and the writing style which wasn’t as distinct as I would have wanted.

Other than that, I can see how this series has been a smash hit for YA Fantasy readers. I will be continuing on with Kingsbane (Book 2) as I am curious to see how her story has developed.

Published: 22 May 2018

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Pages: 501

How I Read It: Hardcover

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