A HUGE thank you to Wednesday Books, Samantha Cohoe, and NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Can we start by appreciating that gorgeous cover?

This book started off so strong, I loved the character introduction and the world building was interesting. But, it was a tad slow for me and I found myself growing bored at times. The writing was strong though, so I did enjoy that, it was just a little slow for what I wanted right now.

There are also some trigger warnings that should be more apparent.

TWs: mental illness, suicide, verbal abuse, mentioned and implied torture

When I requested a review copy of A Golden Fury through NetGalley, I really didn't know much about it, nor was I some alchemy fan, but I thought it was an interesting enough concept to pique my interest. And it was such a good decision on my part, because I loved Thea and her mindset.

A Golden Fury follows Theosebia, the daughter of a famous and harsh alchemist, who's working with her daughter to create the Philosopher's Stone, which makes it's owner wealthy and immortal. Just as they succeed, Thea's mother destroys their work in a fit of madness, leaving her no choice but to travel from France to England, to live with a father who doesn't know she exists. Thea knows she has to recreate the stone to save her mother, but as she goes through her notes, she finds out about the Stone's curse, that makes it's creator lose their mind. Soon she unintentionally has a line of people trying to get her to make the stone for them and therefore sacrifice her mind, and if she doesn't, she'll lose the people she loves.

I fell in love with Thea's logical thought process and vicious need to prove herself immediately, especially after I saw how she was trying to survive and grow away from her mother's choke hold. She was smart and didn't want to deal with anyone's idiocy, and I'm such a sucker for logical main characters, especially because of how their thought process changes the plot. It also made it so much more interesting to watch how the Stone's curse worked, watching someone so sensible fall apart was quite fascinating and wouldn't have hit as hard if she wasn't. While I loved Thea, there were really only two other characters in the story that I liked, Valentin, and eventually Vellacott. Valentin lowkey reminded me of Matthias from Six of Crows, which was a fun surprise, albeit a bit of an emotional one.

Plot wise, I did feel like the first half was a bit slower than I'd have liked, but once Cohoe got past setting the story up, I was completely hooked. I do wish we had gotten to know Dominic a little better beforehand, so stakes were a little higher, but overall I think we got the main gist of his personality pretty well. The story had a nice flow to it's reveals, and I loved the ending to Thea's story, especially since I hadn't seen it coming.

A Golden Fury was an excellent debut, the historical and fantasy aspects were beautifully blended together, with little twists along the way to keep things interesting until it ended with a bang. If you're a fan of fantasy, historical or both, definitely pick this up, it's such an adventurous standalone!

Is losing yourself worth the price of power and everything you’ve ever wished for? If so, be careful what it is you wish for! Although a science fiction novel, so many elements of right v wrong, societal inequalities and longing to be a part of things is evident throughout. The plot was engaging with characters and events that kept the story flowing seamlessly and me on the edge of my seat. The climax could not have unfolded any differently, yet it was unexpected at the same time. Such a well written, exciting journey!

Philosopher stone, Oxford, Talented Female alchemist. These points instantly caught my attention. Thea Hope is assistant of her famous alchemist mother. Her Mother-Marguerite Hope- kicked her out of the laboratory when she found out her interest in Will. Philosopher stone comes with a price, which her mother had to pay by her sanity. Thea doesn't have any option except her father who doesn't know about her. Thea has to go to England and save her mother.

I liked the first half of the story, the world setting and the overall theme was quite intriguing. Thea's and her experience in Oxford was also quite interesting to read. But with time story started to get dull. I couldn't relate to Will, and Thea and Will's relationship was so bland and boring to me. Things started to get muddy and kind of senseless. Many things were introduced in the second half which wasn't able to catch my attention. The story was running in a circle and I lost my interest and started to skim read it. The ending was unexpected and abrupt.

This book was a little bit slow for my liking, but overall it was a good read. I found it to be a refreshing change from most of the YA titles I am used to reading and I really enjoyed that. Golden Fury begins in France during the revolution. Thea has been training to be an alchemist with her horrid mother but danger is rising and she leaves to London to help a friend. She must, of course, prove herself in the alchemy world, as it is dominated by men and she proves to be quite a strong character in the end. I did enjoy the book in the end, as the twists did keep me reading.

A female alchemist, The Philosophers Stone and the cover had me sold. I felt that this fell a bit flat.

It was hard for me to connect to the characters, but I think it was meant to be that way since Thea and her mother were both scientists and their main focus was completing the stone. Thea's mother was cold toward her, her attention was on the stone and nothing else. Thea's mother went mad from creating the stone and tried killing Thea in the process.

Thea in turn travels to Oxford to meet the father she never knew, who is both shocked and a bit cold toward Thea since her mother never told him about her even existing. Along with meeting her father for the first time, Thea meets Dominic who is her father's assistant. Dominic helps Thea with trying to create the stone again in her father's lab, but once again the madness shows up and Thea's life is once again in jeopardy and this time someone does die.

Thea and Dominic run to London to turn to Will, who was an assistant to Thea's mother and a love interest of Thea's. When they reach London Thea does manage to find Will, but his health is not the best, and once again Thea is pulled into making the Philosophers Stone for a wealthy benefactor that Will owes a debt too.

Thea has a blind love and devotion toward Will despite her mother forcing him out of his apprenticeship once she found out about the relationship between the two. Thea discovers that Will had been hiding a secret from her and she is still willing to make deals with his benefactor to save him after she makes the Philosophers Stone.

It felt that the last this of the book was rushed. The author was trying to find a quick way to wrap it up after Thea was able to make the stone and couldn't really find a way to end it. I understand that this is a debut novel, but I'd be willing to give the author another chance on any future books she writes.

Picked this title to add to my list of "witchy" reads for October. It felt very teeny-boppery and juvenile to me. Then again, I am typically not a fan of teen fiction.

I really enjoyed this book. It was compelling and heart-wrenching. I loved watching Thea grow as a person. Her journey and is amazing. Also, I really enjoyed the characters in this book and how they helped or hindered Thea. This was a different book from what I'm used to reading. I can't wait to read more from this author.

Honest Review:
I truly enjoy books that delve into the wondrous mystery that is alchemy. Much like I appreciated all the academic pursuits of Deb Harkness's A Discovery of Witches series for all of its historical and scientific bits, A Golden Fury also plunges into science and mythos with the fresh take on The Philosopher's Stone.

The pacing is a tad slow for my tastes, and I felt like the primary conflict needed more drama, but overall if you are a fan of ADOW of Stalking Jack the Ripper (on my TBR!) then you will certainly enjoy this debut! 4/5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Wednesday Books for the ARC!

From Goodreads: Thea Hope longs to be an alchemist out of the shadow of her famous mother. The two of them are close to creating the legendary Philosopher’s Stone—whose properties include immortality and can turn any metal into gold—but just when the promise of the Stone’s riches is in their grasp, Thea’s mother destroys the Stone in a sudden fit of violent madness.

While combing through her mother’s notes, Thea learns that there’s a curse on the Stone that causes anyone who tries to make it to lose their sanity. With the threat of the French Revolution looming, Thea is sent to Oxford for her safety, to live with the father who doesn’t know she exists.

But in Oxford, there are alchemists after the Stone who don’t believe Thea’s warning about the curse—instead, they’ll stop at nothing to steal Thea’s knowledge of how to create the Stone. But Thea can only run for so long, and soon she will have to choose: create the Stone and sacrifice her sanity, or let the people she loves die.

A book about alchemists and the magic of the philosopher's stone looked like it’d be an interesting read. The first half was pretty good and I enjoyed it but then the story tanked for me. I was very disappointed in the main character and her manner of thinking.
I wanted her to stand up and be strong and to have integrity but that was not the case. She kept disappointing me with her choices and her helplessness in the face of the hurdles in her way.
I really wanted to like this book but it just wasn’t for me.

This was such a fun, fresh take on the philosophers stone. I love that we got to explore alchemy as a theme, I feel like we don’t see that too often, especially not in YA.
The first half of the story was really strong, and I was really enjoying it, getting into the ladder portion, I felt things took a turn. The story became slower paced and a lot of interesting choices were made by the author.
All in all, I’d average out the story to a 3. Strong beginning and lacking ending.
I am excited to see what Samantha Cohoe does next, this was a strong debut in my opinion.

Initial Thoughts

I was super excited to receive an ARC of this book on NetGalley and even more excited to be chosen for the blog tour hosted by the publisher. I love stories that involve historical fantasy and alchemy has always interested me as well.

Some Things I Liked

Valentin as a charismatic villain. I loved him. I never even really thought of him as a villain. I was thrilled to see his development and even had moments where I wished he and Thea would fall in love.
Morally grey characters. Every character with the exception of Dominic was incredibly grey. Whether that be because of clouded judgement in pursuit of the stone or because they were just selfish people at their cores, I loved seeing the plot twists that resulted in the greyness of these characters’ actions.
Historical fantasy. I also really enjoyed the historical tidbits dropped throughout the story. The main plot was not around history so I was pleased to see that the plot was not driven by historical events, but I was also happy to see that they did influence the characters and the story.

One Thing I Wasn’t Crazy About

I was disappointed in the lack of development in the romance plot. Thea struck me as a lady of science who wouldn’t have been easily swayed by the charms of Will. However, despite their brief “affair”, she fancied herself in love with him. Furthermore, I found Dominic to be a perfectly suitable partner for her but he was relegated to minor character status relatively early on. I would have liked to see more development in the romance department.

Series Value

I can’t see much more to this story in the form of sequels. And, unfortunately, we didn’t get to learn enough about the side characters to merit and kind of spin-offs.

However, I would like to read more of Samantha Cohoe’s works. I think this debut has a lot of promise and I’d like to see more.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this book. I rated it a bit more leniently since it was a debut but overall, I found many things that I liked about the story. It lacked romance but I think the story was one that I would recommend and found interesting.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommendations for Further Reading

The Kinder Poison by Natalie Mae – if you liked the idea of a troubled villain who you can almost feel sorry for (and dare I say it, but, almost root for), try this new release.
Splinters of Scarlet by Emily Bain Murphy – if you enjoyed the historical fantasy vibes with morally grey characters, try this standalone.

This was a unique YA reading experience for a number of reasons. First of all, how often do you actually get a book about alchemists? It’s rare to see a book about alchemists and not just featuring alchemy as background noise or world building filler. It also read as much more emotionally mature than many YA books and as such, I do think it would appeal to the adult fantasy audience. That being said, content-wise it is definitely teen appropriate. 

Creating the philosopher’s stone is the ultimate goal of all alchemists. It offers power over all things, but it comes with a price. The stone chooses who it will allow to be it’s master and all others will be driven to madness. Thea Hope and her mother were working on creating the stone until her mother banned her from the lab and went mad. She had created it, but was rejected. Thea left France, went to Oxford, and found her estranged father who was also trying to create the stone. Her knowledge of the process made her a valuable target and she had a number of dangerous encounters.

Ultimately, this book is about Thea trying to recreate the stone so that she can heal her mother of her madness. She’s also trying to make a name for herself and become an alchemist in her own right. Throw in a side of bad romance and you’ve got yourself a proper story. The romance/love-interest part is actually pretty interesting because it’s not quite what you would expect. The love interest is her mother’s former alchemy assistant who got kicked out when he and Thea became friendly. He’s handsome, writes such kind letters, and is honestly a little shady. 

While I was pretty interested in the first half of the book, my interest waned in the latter portion. The events began to drag and I didn’t care so much about the minor characters that were in peril. I found myself skimming until the plot advanced enough. The ending was unexpected and somewhat made up for the parts that plodded along. Overall, a good read and solid debut novel. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future releases from Samantha Cohoe!

I really enjoyed this one! It was dark, different, and had a strong female MC! This isn’t like anything I’ve read before and I loved Thea’s journey! There wasn’t to much romance which was a nice change from most YA I read, and it was more character focused. Following Thea, the people she encounters along the way, but it focused solely on Thea. Which I really enjoyed.

I also loved the alchemy aspect, that isn’t something I normally read, but I absolutely loved it! I definitely recommend this is you want a break from the same repetitive YA you’ve been reading!

I wanted to love this book but I struggled to connect with Thea Hope and I struggled with where this book was going. A lot of promise but not fully delivered. 3 Stars!

(actual rating 2.5/5)

I really wanted to enjoy this one, but I suppose it just wasn't meant to be.

Thea Hope is a budding alchemist under her mother's tutelage in the midst of the French Revolution, working to create the Philosopher's Stone, a fabled stone said to turn any metal into gold and the creator immortal. However, when a bout of madness compels her to destroy it just before their hard work pays off, Thea is sent to Oxford to live with her father for her own safety. But when news spreads that Thea knows how to create the Philosopher's Stone, it becomes apparent that some alchemists will do absolutely anything to attain such power, and that Thea is no longer safe - from both those willing to go to extreme measures to get what they want, and the Stone itself.

The beginning of this book is set up quite well and develops intrigue right away. The book was written so beautifully that it was a definite let-down that I didn't like it. I was interested enough in the beginning, but things quickly started changing for the worse by the time I was halfway through. The book itself is quite slow-paced, and didn't have the action that I felt I was promised in the premise. The ending tried to tie things up with a bow, but I felt that it failed to acknowledge/resolve certain plot points, and overall left me feeling quite unsatisfied.

While there wasn't a lot of plot, I felt that there was a fair amount of character growth and development, but that didn't stop me from disliking Thea and especially her mother. I hated Will with every atom of my being when reading this and still do. While the characters certainly are interesting enough, I wasn't drawn to them; they didn't feel realistic or 3-dimensional to me, and that was a huge hindrance in my enjoyment of this book.

Personally, one of the only redeeming qualities of this book was probably the somewhat immersive-ness of the setting. Even though not much truly happened in the book but for the last few chapters, I liked the way the author wrote about and described the people and the places that were involved in the story. While I certainly felt like this book could have been far better, it wasn't completely horrible either.

Overall, I would recommend this book to someone who wants a fairly slow read but wouldn't mind it, or is looking for the same thing in a YA historical fantasy. It was alright, I suppose.

I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book. I was really hoping she was going to become this super powerful alchemist, a raging force of nature changing the world. Instead she was a lovesick puppy, selfish and naive.

While I was interested in the premise the story moved a bit too slow for me in the begining, after a while it did move faster and it became easier to get through it. It did jump around a lot which left me confused at some parts. I did love Thea who was such a strong female character and you get to know her family connections. I also appreciated that the romance didn't take center stage and that plot could shine through. Cohoe does right exceptionally well but I was hoping for more world building so I could understand more of what was going on.

A Golden Fury was a delight to read! Set in France and England in the 18th century, we follow Thea who is a young alchemist in training. Her mother going mad and the coming Revolution force her to England where a series of adventures befall her. I really liked Thea - she is young and inexperienced but still bold, strong, and competent. She learns from her mistakes and tries to set things right all while battling her own desire for the Philosopher's stone. I was continually engaged and I thought the eerie curse made for a perfect October read. (As a side note, the book is never scary, but has an eerie fantasy element that keeps you waiting for what happens next).

I would recommend this for teenagers and up, especially for those who like fantasy. There is some violence but no explicit sex scenes or language. There is also no explicit violence towards women in the novel.

There are some books that really stop you in your tracks when you realize they are debuts. “A Golden Fury” was such a book for me.

Thea Hope is a heroine one is sure to like immediately! She’s smart, strong, and unexpectedly honest. This makes her vulnerable. She also wants to be an alchemist which adds to the fact that she’s pretty cool 😉
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“A Golden Fury” is in a sense a self dicovery story. It’s about a girl who has had her life moulded by the choices of others. And still, in these flawed human being who might be accused of having failed her, Thea discovers her calling and greatest love — alchemy. And as any great alchemist, Thea knows she must pursue the discovery of the Philosopher Stone.

But when she discovers the true meaning of this journey, she will face her greatest challenge yet— admit who she really wants to be.
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Samantha Cohoe writes complicated characters who are not what they seem. Cohoe does guide through some dark, heavy moments. But through them, she makes us stop and ask where our enemy is and who they are. And the impossible might be discovery, love might be possible after all :)