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.

Furyborn is the first in Claire Legrand’s Empirium Trilogy of YA fantasy novels which introduces the story of two young women 1000 years apart but both embroiled in the same conflict. Legend has long foretold the arrival of two queens with the ability to manipulate all seven elements of magic; one is destined to become the Sun Queen and one the Blood Queen (you can guess which is good and which is evil – although perhaps it’s not so simple…).
Enter Rielle and Eliana, you find out pretty quickly that adult Rielle has become the Blood Queen (I promise that isn’t a spoiler) therefore the sensible conclusion is that Eliana is to become the Sun Queen.
Rielle is a nobel and best friend to the crown prince, Audric – enter hunky love interest – she has known about her powers from a very young age when an argument with her mother caused her to burn down their home and also kill her mother. Over the years her father has fought to supress her powers and keep them hidden from all but a trusted family friend, often drugging Rielle as a means of achieving this. Then one day Audric’s life is threatened by assassins and Rielle unleashes her powers to save his life, since only the heralded Sun and Blood Queen are supposed to be able to wield more than one form of elemental magic Rielle is forced to undergo a series of seven trials to determine which of these queens she is. We meet Rielle as a victim, supressed by her father and living with the guilt of her mother’s murder, she finds it difficult to reconcile the power inside of her and is determined to prove herself as the Sun Queen and a force for good.
Eliana is a bounty hunter 1000 years in the future from Rielle’s storyline and is known as The Dread of Orline for her unparalleled success as said bounty hunter. The legend of the Blood Queen is just that to the people in Rielle’s timeline and most don’t believe in the tales of magic. However, Eliana has the ability to not be hurt, or rather to heal very quickly when hurt, so that’s obviously a bit unusual and in one of many parallels to Rielle’s story she is forced to keep this gift hidden from everyone except those closest to her. Then one day her mother is kidnapped in a series of kidnappings that having been plaguing the town and she sets off with hunky love interest, Harken, her younger brother, Remy, and a sworn enemy known as The Wolf (and also Simon – I did find his name particularly out of place considering the high fantasy setting and rest of the names Legrand chose). Eliana has had to become hard fast and has been taught to kill under the tutelage of her mother, she is shown to be cold and ruthless and is even complicit in the execution of a teenager early on in the book.
I should also mention the angels, there are angels who appear to be able to inhabit people’s minds and interact with them from far away, it is also clear that angels are feared and at the route of the overarching conflict that the Queens are to play a role in. Anyway, that’s probably enough plot without giving too much away.
I actually quite liked this book, being fairly new to YA and especially the high end fantasy side of the spectrum I found it quite enjoyable, fun escapism with lead characters that were not total carboard cut outs, although the romantic interests of both Rielle and Eliana were typical personality-less heroic male types – however I didn’t mind this too much as I was far more focussed on the storyline and the two main protagonists. The writing is good YA writing, fast action, quick dialogue and enough decent worldbuilding and description to create a realised fantasy setting. Some of the themes are quite dark, neither of our heroines has had an easy time of it growing up and Eliana in particular has spilled her fair share of blood.
I did, however, have a couple of issues with this book. First, although action is a plus in YA fantasy there just seemed to be a little too much happening all the time in this book, often the action seemed to get ahead of itself and became difficult to visualise. It was also non-stop with no real opportunity to allow the reader to take a breath and reflect on what had happened before the next high-speed fight scene and/or trial had broken out. The structure of the book is that of alternating viewpoints between our two protagonists, every chapter is fairly short and almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger – I understand this being utilised as a tool to keep the reader turning the pages but it’s overuse became a little draining and meant that the impact was somewhat dulled every time it was employed.
The nonstop action and cliffhangers also meant that there was a lack of character development and reflection. In the case of Rielle, who is being put through a series of gruelling trials where she is finally able to openly utilise and explore her powers for the first time, I would have thought this would have meant her character would have a lot to think about and would have been good to have had a little more on how this power was influencing her. We know almost straight away that she is to become the Blood Queen so I was expecting more inner turmoil as she begins to understand the power that she has within her.
Eliana, on the other hand, having started out as my preferred storyline quickly became irritating and showed even less character development as the book went on, her reaction to everything was to threaten violence and there were very few moments where her violent past seemed to affect her. Again, the assumption is that she is to become the Sun Queen so I would like to have seen her character perhaps soften more or at least express guilt for the many deaths she has caused to date. That being said, this is only book one in a trilogy and therefore there is definite room for this to be rectified and I’m inclined to think that I’ll be checking out the next instalment to see how these characters develop into what we assume they are going to be.

*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.

I have seen so much hype about this book, I thought I would like it better. I normally do not mind alternating points of view but add in the time difference and it was just too much.

After getting through the slowness and confusion that took up the first couple hundred pages, I finally figured out the way this story was flowing. I think out of both of the protagonists, I loved Eliana the most. Rielle seemed like a lustful and desperate woman which I wasn’t entirely a fan of, but goodness some parts were steamyyyyy. Eliana was a badass, strong willed, stone hard killer and her world was so horrifying and thrilling at the same time. I look forward to seeing how the story will continue. I think this book showed how power can ruin and sanctify worlds and how history can either repeat itself or have opposite outcomes.