Official Synopsis:

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.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Review:

An epic start to an exquisite and captivating fantasy series, Furyborn is everything I had hoped it to be and more.  A note before the actual text of the ARC tells readers that they hope this book will change our lives.  I thought that was a tall order, and that actually made me a bit apprehensive starting the book.  However, after a few chapters, I was hooked.

Almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger.  Which was amazing to read, but also frustrating.  Amazing because the plot and writing were captivating and I desperately wanted to keep reading each chapter to get through each of the girl’s stories to find out what happened next.  Frustrating because when I was trying to look for a place to stop, it was almost impossible.  Plus, most of the chapters are decently short, making the “Just one more chapter” lie I was telling myself even easier to accept.

I loved both of the main characters, Rielle and Eliana.  I thought it would be hard to connect to Rielle, because the preface is set before her point of view chapters, and reveals some not so pleasant details about her life two years after her point of view.  However, I was immediately drawn in to her voice, and yearned to understand what had affected her so deeply as to cause the outcome that is shown in the preface.  (Can you tell I’m trying to make this review as spoiler free as possible?).  Rielle’s best friends, Audric and Ludivine, were absolutely lovely as well.  The friendship between Rielle and Ludivine was so supportive and loving, and Rielle and Audric…well.  Let’s just say I totally approve.  Audric reads as such a pure human.  So pure, at times he is oblivious, which is frustrating as a reader, because I know he’s intelligent, but he can be so blind to the realities of what is going on around him.

Eliana and Rielle are total opposites.  While both of their hearts are in the right place, and both want to prevent their loved ones, they go about it in different ways.  Eliana is a killer, and makes no effort to hide that fact.  She’s ruthless and focused on survival in the colonized world of the Empire.  Her world is nowhere near as peaceful as Rielle’s starts out as.  Still, she, like Rielle, is an incredibly dynamic character.  She makes awful decisions, but I still found myself rooting for her at every turn.  You don’t have to respect the decisions of a character, but their intentions are important and are what makes them a likable character, which is the case with Eliana.  Her loyalty to her mother and her younger brother, Remy, is admirable, and everything she does is to help ensure the survival of her family.  Don’t even get me started on her best friend and lover, Harkan.  If you read the book, you’ll see what I mean.  I absolutely adore him.

In a fantastical age where so much of society has gone to ruin, the normalization of same-sex relationships prevails.  Eliana has slept with both men and women for information, and other same-sex couples are not questioned at all, as it should be.  Unfortunately, this is something that our own “real” society has yet to accomplish.

An interesting aspect of the story is the angels.  In most of the fantasy series that I have read, angels are good, not bad, such as in Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters novels.  Some of the ideas of the story reminded me of Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen series, but Furyborn clearly stands on its own.

Overall, I fell in love with Rielle and Eliana, and I would absolutely love to see these books turned into a film franchise.  I can’t believe that I have to wait a year to read the sequel!  (And after that, the final book in the trilogy!) This is the first book that I have read of Claire’s, but I’m excited to take a look at her other books.  Furyborn will be released by Sourcebooks Fire on May 22.

*Check out my “Furyborn” playlist!*

*Check out how I created the photo you see above!*

Connect with the author!

You can follow Claire Legrand on Instagram at @clairelegrand and on Twitter at @clairelegrand.

PREORDER ‘FURYBORN’ HERE:

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*There is also a preorder incentive giveaway going on right now!