ARC Review: Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Title: Furyborn
Author: Claire Legrand
Series: Empirium #1
Publication: May 22nd 2018 by Sourcebooks Fire
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Google Play | Kobo
Rating: 5/5★

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, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire 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.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to find the right words to express my love for Furyborn. Obviously it was amazing because otherwise I wouldn't have rated it with five stars. So yes it was amazing, well written, action-packed and full of twists. The perfect fantasy book, in my opinion. 

The book was basically two stories in one. First of all we have Rielle Dardenne who's been keeping her power over all seven elements secret for years until she has to safe her best friend who's also the crown prince of Celdaria. 
Second, we have Eliana Ferracora who lives a thousand years later where the tale of Rielle is nothing but a story. Eliana is an assassin for the Undying Empire until her mother disappears without a trace and she joins the rebels to find her.

I absolutely loved these two stories in one. We know from the start that Rielle's story doesn't have a happily ever after but with each chapter that revolves around her we get more and more of her story, which was truly epic. Eliana's story was equally riveting, I thought. I love reading books feauturing female assassins so I must say that my preference went out to Eliana in the end. But I really did enjoy reading about both of them. The story in itself was also really fascinating with how power like Rielle possessed it could go both ways, good or evil.

I also wanna say that the secondary characters in this book were fantastic as well. I have some favorites like Simon (I ship the hell out of him with a certain assassin...) and I also totally loved Zahra, who came a bit later into the story but that doesn't mean she wasn't amazing. The story definitely had a great cast of characters in general, even the villains like Corien who I thought was really fascinating. I'm sorry but the bad boys steal my heart. And another thing... angels. I don't want to give too much away but this book features angels. And everyone who knows me just a little bit knows I'm not a fan of books with angels but damn these angels. They're something else. I was simply hooked.

At the start of the book I hadn't expected Furyborn to end up in my top five of favorite books that I read in 2017. The book doesn't release until May 2018 so the wait for the sequel is going to be absolutely horrible but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait because I'm super excited to see how it will all continue.

{Another thing I want to mention but that has nothing to do with Furyborn is that in 2014 I read another book by Claire Legrand: Winterspell, a retelling of The Nutcracker story. And yes, it was as amazing as it sounds so I'd also highly recommend that book.}

Author bio:
Claire Legrand used to be a musician until she realized she couldn’t stop thinking about the stories in her head. Now she is a writer and librarian living in central New Jersey (although her heart will always live in her home state of Texas).

Her first novel is The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing in 2012. She is also the author of The Year of Shadows, a ghost story for middle grade readers; and Winterspell, a young adult re-telling of The Nutcracker. Some Kind of Happiness, her middle grade novel about mental illness, family secrets, and the power of storytelling, is a 2017 Edgar Award Nominee. Claire’s latest novel, Foxheart, is a classic fantasy-adventure and a 2016 Junior Library Guild selection. She is one of the four authors behind The Cabinet of Curiosities, an anthology of dark middle grade short fiction that was a Junior Library Guild selection, a Bank Street Best Book, and among the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing in 2014.

Her work is represented by Victoria Marini of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
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