2.5 stars, rounded up. I feel so ambivalent about this book in every possible way. The premise was fascinating: two badass independent women kicking ass and taking names? Sign me up. Weird magic spread across centuries? Yep, I'm here for it. I wanted to love this book so much and yet so much of it fell flat for me. Even the ending was a letdown, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason to read the follow-up volumes.

Here are a few things that bothered me most:

1. When you market a book as having two amazing female protagonists, please have the goods to back that up. Both Rielle and Eliana were so 2D it hurt. Their defining characteristics weren't their strength, cunning, intelligence, or anything of the sort. Instead, it was their overwrought sexuality. I'm all about women embracing their sexuality and being unapologetic about their enjoyment of sex, but it was so center stage here that I was continuously rolling my eyes. The sex scene was so cringeworthy and reminded me of bad fanfic.

2. The lack of suspense throughout made trekking through the 500 pages of this book a bit of a chore. There was nothing to wonder about because the outcome was revealed in the first few pages and all the opportunities for twists or turns were either non-existent or totally ignored. I didn't get to the end of this book thinking, "Oh SHIT, I wasn't expecting THAT!" Instead, I was like, "Finally, I'm finished this damn book!" Never a good thing.

3. The implausibility of it all. I know this is YA fantasy so suspension of disbelief is a necessity and I'm totally down with it. However, the plot and points within it seemed so arbitrary and nonsensical that I was like, "??????" half the time. Legrand struggled to make me actually give a damn about what was happening and to whom because I didn't know why it was to begin with. It's like she just threw as many things at the page to see what would stick but then let it all stay anyway.

4. The world-building was a bit blah. All the details about the cities were so generic and blah that I was just like, you know what, whatever. Let's just get on with this so I can move onto something else.

That being said, I finished the damn thing, so I must not have hated it too much? I dunno, it's just always a disappointment to put so much time into a colossal book to get nothing in return, and that's how this was for me.

This book is amazing. The two strong female characters may be a thousand years apart but the back and forth storytelling ties them together without being repetitive or labor intensive to keep track. The descriptions are beautiful, although I will say a few moments were wordy, but it helped build the scenes and define the progression of the book. Both characters are also strong individuals so you can like and dislike them without feeling like Legrand is writing a stereotype for both heroines. It might not seem like much, but this book gave me the physical reaction of gasping and clutching my necklace. I was so absorbed by this that I will definitely be putting it forefront for my recommendations at my store.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. This is a title that I will gladly sell.

Trying to sum up this story is kinda hard because the blurb actually does a pretty good job on its own, however, I'll give it a shot. 

Rielle and Eliana are 2 kick-ass girls born centuries apart but both are fighting for the survival of not only themselves but their kingdoms and loved ones as well. I'm not going to lie reading this book was slow going but I did enjoy it, there are lots of twists and turns and trying to figure out how Rielle and Eliana are linked to one another was a challenge. 

I have to say that I preferred Eliana over Rielle most of the time, she gave me some serious Celaena Sardothien vibes so if you like Throne of Glass you'll probably enjoy this book. 

I'm keeping this review short and sweet today because I don't have anything else to say.

This was a difficult book for me to get through, though not for the writing. I think the story just didn't appeal to me. Each chapter shifts between Rielle and Eliana, two characters from two different time periods. You get to learn their stories at the same rate, two completely different stories, mind you. Rielle has magical powers while Eliana has rogue-like abilities wielding daggers. I felt like the entire Rielle timeline was very Hunger Games'ish (she has to go through some trials) and that was a definite put off, since I didn't like that book.

This is the second book in a row I've read that changed characters each chapter and I do have to say I'm not a fan of that style. I'm a very thorough reader and it makes it tough to get into the story when it keeps switching back and forth. Overall I think the story was probably written for an audience of women as there were a lot of romantic themes throughout - and even one explicit sex scene, which was definitely weird and unexpected.

I will not be reading further books in the series. I didn't really identify with any of the characters and by the end I really didn't care what happened - I just wanted to be finished. I am normally a fan of fantasy books but this one just wasn't my cup of tea.

I'm split right down the middle when it comes to my feelings on FURYBORN. Beyond the fact that I got stuck in a slump around the 30% mark, and how this feels really long even when I push aside the slump factor, I just.. don't know.

It opened with a pretty awesome first chapter and even though we know the 'ending' (sorta), the rest of the story is both the before, and way after, of that initial introduction. In some ways you'd think the time jump storyline would therefore be more interesting but.. nope, it sure wasn't. Of the two main lady POVs, I definitely preferred the one set in the 'past' timeline. Rielle is far from perfect and is making obvious mistakes along the way, mistakes we see laid out to their bloody final conclusion in that first chapter, but they don't feel completely her fault. A lot is beyond her control despite some of her subterfuge.

Eliana, on the other hand, I don't have anything good to say about. She's supposed to be some fierce assassin who does what she does because she has to but she's painfully hypocritical and judgmental, jumps to all sorts of conclusions, and has a devoted mystery man in the shape of Simon.. who was the only character in her storyline I cared for. Even if I have questions as to some of the mechanics of that devotion. The particular reveals and twists about her were both more than what I thought they would be, and also less, and yet I'm still left with a million questions -- hopefully to be answered in the sequel.

The <i>Empirium</i> series is a mix of a lot of things -- fantasy and elemental magic and higher beings and prophecy and a little bit of something I won't mention -- and maybe that's why the dialogue is at turns modern and also old timey..? I didn't love that, to be honest, because it's just trying to be a lot of too many things. Combined with protagonists who are supposed to be strong and somehow that translates into making them unlikeable.. well, I'm just hoping this is a duology instead of a trilogy so I don't have two <b>more</b> five hundred+ page books to sift through to get to the end.

I'm hopeful about what's to come but I'm going to temper my expectations a bit after the way this one went.

The very first thing that caught my eye was the GORGEOUS cover. I mean, look at it! It’s so unique and clean and ughhh,I love it.

The second thing that caught my eye was the premise of two different girls connected through time. Gimmicky? Maybe! But it certainly grabbed my attention since I don’t often see that narrative device in YA fantasy.

Our two protagonists Rielle and Eliana are separated by millennia but are seemingly bound by a prophecy revolving around two queens, one dark and one light. We learn from the beginning of the book how Rielle’s story ends (seemingly in death and pain and tragedy–so very fun!) but Legrand does an amazing job throughout book working to tell Rielle’s story and upend what the versions of her presented to both the audience and in-world history during Eliana’s time. Legrand plays with this framing throughout the book and I found it quite effective.

Once I started tearing through the pages, I came to realize how much more this book is than just a neat non-linear storytelling trick. It’s an epic, sweeping and ambitious story, punctuated by messy, complicated women and don’t really care if you find them likable. (For the record, I found them both incredibly compelling, especially my bb Rielle, who I solemnly swear to protect and defend all of my days).

And I haven’t even started on the shipping. MY GOD, THE SHIPPING. I don’t even want to get into the specifics yet so everyone can read it unspoiled but I just need to say how much I adored the romance in Furyborn. The book features not one, but maybe even two bisexual protagonists, which: cool! And there’s a ship for every taste! Friends to lovers! Star-crossed tragedy! Even a super hot villain who is so incredibly my type that it feels like Legrand wrote him just for me!

I’m so excited for everyone to get to the read this book and we will definitely be covering it on an upcoming podcast. Pre-order now so you can read (and drink!) along with us!

Furyborn is one of the best YA fantasies I've ever read. It weaves together two timelines that are equally intriguing to create a story that never feels dull or boring. Rielle and Eliana are amazing, well-developed characters that found a place in my heart as two strong and humanly flawed heroines. Even though it's fantasy, the story feels so timely and on par with the conversations currently happening around us.

There's something for everyone in this story--romance, fast-paced duels and magical battles, female friendships, assassins, and ANGST. So much delicious angst.

Furyborn is an epic young adult fantasy novel that I had some mixed feelings about. I think for me this book falls into some of the same pitfalls that other books of it's kind suffer from --the hype monster! Don't get me wrong, hyping up a book and talking about it is awesome for the publishing industry and it gets us all talking and excited about new books, but sometimes I think I go into books with way too many expectations. I think for me that's what happened with this book. I also want to say that a 3-star review is NOT bad, it just means that this book didn't totally wow me or kept me interesting in reading it non-stop. 3 star is decent, 3 stars mean I just thought it was okay, and it's perfectly okay to feel lukewarm about books.


One of the things I did like about this novel was the world building. I think some of it could have been fleshed out a little more, but since I know this is going to be a trilogy, I am a little more forgiven with that. I thought the two sides of the world we hear about in this novel was really interesting. We see two very different worlds from getting the thoughts of both Rielle and Eliana. I thought it was cool to see these two women existing in the same land, but across times and how much it has changed from one's time to the next. Rielle's world was a little more interesting to me, because I always find it interesting when magic and God are used together in a fantasy world. It interests me when a world can believe in a higher power, but also are okay with having magical abilities. I think we perceive that as not being the case, so I find it cool when I see that in fantasy novels. There's mentions about Angels in this book, and I feel like I need to know more about what is going on there. Are they really Angels in how we view them biblically, or are they just another race that the humans in this land don't really understand? I assume this will be fleshed out in the follow up books. Eliana's world is so different from Rielle's, that I just struggled to figure out HOW that was going to happen, and I think we only get a kernel of that by the book's end.


One of the flaws I found with this book was frankly just the characters themselves. Even though the book constantly goes back and forth between the two girls, I just couldn't connect with either of them. I just didn't like either of them, and I find it really hard to enjoy something when I just don't care what happens to the characters. I also felt like it was pretty predictable how these two were connected and why we should care about both of them. I think I figured it out just a few chapters in, and it felt like it drug on to finally just come out and say it.


Another little issue I have with this book is that I don't think it should have been coded for teens. I'm not a prude or anything, and I'll read book sex any day, but there is a sex scene in this book that I thought was a touch too adult for the YA/Teen book scene. Not to say that teens don't have sex or don't know what it is, it just felt like it was a little too graphic for a teen book and I don't know if there really is a warning about there being sex in it. This book is definitely geared towards older teens, and I wouldn't want a younger kid reading a book with something like that if it's not something they are ready to handle. Maybe I'm reading in to it too much, but it just made me feel like maybe this book should have been coded as adult fantasy.


This book is DENSE, so if you like a good long fantasy novel, I would still recommend it. I think for me it came down to not connecting with the characters, but I think a lot of other fantasy readers would really enjoy it.

Furyborn starts out with magic, intrigue, and the earthly/human and heavenly/angelic realms colliding. The story sets up slow, spanning a thousand years, and absolutely not pulling any punches. Fans of The Queen of The Tearling will enjoy this book, but it requires patience and the investment of your curiosity in a series that is only just beginning.

I don't have much time to write this so I will keep it short... Furyborn was one epic novel! I love the characters, the story, and the differing timelines. This is not one to miss folks, pre-order now!

This was an amazing YA fantasy read! The characters are so easy to connect with, the language used to describe is stunning- I felt like I was there with the characters! Will be leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley and a psychical copy from Bookishfirst for an honest review.

This was a promising start to a trilogy with memorable characters and a seamless collaborated plot. Weaving two separate timelines together can not be an easy way to write a story but in this book it is done wonderfully. You get to know each main character jumping back and forth between their two stories and then you gradually get to see how they are intertwined. One of my favorite things about the world building was the little quotes we get before each chapter. The level of detail that went into those is astounding.

My only complaints were when the chapters left on a cliff hanger or a new revelation, I didn't want to switch to the other character; I wanted to find out what happened with the first. I also felt the stories lagged a bit at the end. Looking forward to book 2!

I think for me this book fell into the "was way too hyped and my expectations were too high" category. FURYBORN is not a bad novel, my interest was kept throughout the entire thing, and I really enjoyed the dual-POV/dual time period type of narrative. But at the end of the day, I wasn't invested in any of the characters and I had no strong feelings about the book when I finished.

As much as I normally hate books that have a dual POV it worked here!

Characters: 5 – I loved all the characters.  Rielle and Eliana are both wonderfully flawed and real, and while they are completely different I love them both!  Though my favorite character was by far Remy, and I do think that the supporting characters in Eliana's story was better.  

Plot: 4 –  I really enjoyed the plot, and I felt like the balance between the stories was very good, as one story was slowing down, the other was picking up.  There are some chunks of Rielle's story that are missing, which I assume will be picked up in the next book.  

Writing: 4 - As I said the dual POV worked for me.  I think it helped that the stories took place in two completely different settings with two completely different casts of characters. 

Originality: 3 – A prophesied Queen is not exactly new.  While there are original elements, the overarching premise has been done.  

Predictability: 4 – So I don't know if the big reveal was meant to be a big reveal, because I had this figured out from pretty much the get go, but there was one twist in Rielle's story that I was pretty blown away by.  

Romance: 4 –  So this would have been a 5, but for the fact that there was one romance toward the end of the book while completely expected, I thought the execution was a bit off.  

World Building: 4 – My only complaint is that the world building sort of started more in the middle and the end of the book, so I had a lot of questions in the beginning. I still don't think that my questions were all answered, but I am satisfied for now.

I tried so very hard to like this book. The shifting chapters really detracted from the novel and made it impossible for me to become attached to either character. Now, there are some good things about FuryBorn: We get two badass heroines that can show that women are strong, too. You get a character who is loyal to her family at all costs. I just think overall the novel would have flowed better with a Part 1 and a Part 2 for each character.

A book that lives up to all the hype. While i feel like the theme had been done 100 times before this author put a unique spin on it ...Enjoyable read - thank you.

Furyborn is set in a vivid fantasy world, where two formidable women pursue different paths in different time periods. The reader wonders why these two stories are 1000 years apart, but they must be related in some way -- and that mystery is part of the reason this tale is so compelling.

Reille is in love with the crown prince, who is betrothed to Reille's best friend. When Reille reveals powerful abilities to save the prince, it is suspected that she is the Sun Queen, who legend says can save the world. She must withstand seven deadly tests, one for each of the elements, in order to prove her identity.

A thousand years later, Eliana is a bounty hunter. Her family survives only because of her murderous acts. But when her mother disappears, along with many other women from the city, everything changes. As she rebels against the empire, she hooks up with an untrustworthy revolutionary captain who promises to help her find her mother. But his intentions prove otherwise. He wants to show Eliana the secrets of this evil world and show her how her abilities may be the key to creating change.

The leaps in both time and point-of-view are unsettling at first, but events urge the reader forward as these powerful women meet each obstacle and begin to discover the secrets that bind them together.

Given what we learn at the end, I wonder how these stories can be 1000 years apart, but I guess more will be revealed in future installments of The Empirium Trilogy.

The suspense builds at the end of each chapter, and then you are in the other women's world! It's frustrating but effective. Incorporating powerful magical feats, Furyborn will leave you wanting more. Teens who enjoy epic fantasy will be enthralled. Can't wait to recommend Furyborn.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand is the first book of the Empirium series. This one is supposed to be a young adult fantasy but I will start this review right off with a warning to potential readers that I was quite surprised but the sexual content within, a lot more graphic than I would expect for anything young adult and along with language used here and there I would definitely suggest this for the older crowd only.

The story within changes the point of view between Rielle Dardenne and Eliana Ferracora along different timelines as it goes back and forth. The world building in here is a bit lacking making the book confusing to follow at first with no clear explanation giving but just slowly following these two building their characters and those around them.

Rielle is one that has been kept away hiding the powers that she has but when it becomes known she possesses them she has to prove herself through difficult trials. There is a prophecy of a Sun Queen and Rielle needs to prove that she is the one that the prophecy foretold and she will be on the side of the kingdom and her people.

Eliana is one that has always followed orders and done what she needed in her world to survive. She’s fierce and determined with the ability to heal quickly that she’s never understood. When her mother vanishes Eliana finds herself teaming up with those she never expected to do whatever she can to find her.

When finished with this one I found it was one that while I didn’t necessarily dislike it I also didn’t fall in love. The characters actually seemed to switch personalities along the way so there were times I liked one and not the other but then found I felt the opposite. There were surprises a long the way and some interesting touches on some things that may be expanded on in the future but for now this one is a three star read for me.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Furyborn is the most delicious puzzle, a book where the picture is clear from very early on and becomes clearer still as all the pieces slide into place. And YET you hope against hope that the picture on the box is not what the puzzle pieces will reveal. You know what happens (to one of the characters anyway) and you still root for a different outcome all the same. You still gasp when Things Are Revealed and suffer over the what you know is coming still.
I found myself racing back and forth between the alternating chapters, wanting to get to the next part in each girl's story, torn between who I which part I wanted to read more of each time, I tried to pick a favorite (I think Rielle won out a tiny bit), but I came to admire the fierce power and fire in both of these young women. Oh and the guys aren't too shabby either.

The pacing of Furborn was odd.  Each chapter trades back and forth between Rielle and Eliana, in two different millennia's.  There are two specific reasons I think this formula of swapping between them worked.  First, the prologue set up both women's stories perfectly.  Throughout the whole book, whether I was reading about Rielle or Eliana, I never forgot the importance of the first scene.  It left a major impact.

The other reason I think the POV chapter swaps worked was because of Rielle and Eliana's personal journey's.  When I was in love with one of the stories, I was frustrated with the other.  And as the story progressed, my feelings for both rotated.  That set up caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about Furyborn.

I did find both Rielle and Eliana too sexually driven.  Rielle spent far too much time aching for Audric.  Eliana was bad too, but Rielle was worse. Too much time was spent on sex for a Fantasy series.

I also think the plot had a bit too much going on.  There were kidnappings, and wraiths, and angels, and zombie thingies... So much it almost made my head spin.  Additionally, too much time was spent her beauty.  I felt like her costumes for the trials were pulled right out of Hunger Games.  It was all just too much.

Even though Furyborn wasn't perfect, I'm hooked on this story.  I will be reading all three books.  I'm hopeful each book will be better and better.

**Full Review posted live on 5/14.