Furyborn (Empirium Trilogy, #1)

by Claire Legrand

The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 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.

• ISBN10: 1492656623
• ISBN13: 9781492656623
• Publish Date: 22 May 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 9 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Sourcebooks Fire
• Format: Hardcover (Deckle Edge)
• Pages: 512
• Language: English

Reviews

There were some weird moments in this book, but overall I really liked it. It combines so many fantasy elements without falling short. It has some cringy sex scenes, but I wouldn't say there is a lot of romance. It's mostly lust between two teenagers.

We follow two girls, more than 1000 years apart. At least, that is stated in the text but is never clear from the way the world changed. It could just as easily have been 100 years apart. Or fifty. My other complaint is that there are some trials in this book, that were just not interesting. I didn't feel afraid for the characters involved in the trial and I found the trials to be confusing. I couldn't picture them clearly in my head.

If you like Sarah J Maas her books (at least her Throne of Glass series), you will probably like this one as well. I have negative things to say about both, but I enjoy too much to give a negative review.

[alisoninbookland]

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Furyborn is an epic ride. It took me several chapters to fully settle in for the ride and situate myself into the story. There’s a lot of story and terms coming at the reader and not nearly enough information so the reader can’t fully grasp what’s going on.

I always go back and forth with dual POVs. I love getting to know two characters but I always hate having to leave a character at the end of the chapter. I will admit that I really struggled to get to know Rielle and Eliana. [It might have been more me and my really short reading sessions though.] Once I found my rhythm (and finally kept the girls’ stories straight in my head), I was glued to the book.

You know how I love my strong women so Rielle and Eliana were a treat to get to know. Rielle might have been my favorite. I loved how she embraced her powers and let her fear help her grow. I wanted nothing more than for her to suceed. Eliana eventually grew on me because of her strength and willingness to to whatever it took for her family.

I love how the dual story lines eventually met up. It’s not what I was expecting and I NEED TO KNOW MORE. I’m really hoping Kingsbane will fill in some answers for me.

The world building was really interesting. I’ve never read anything like it before. I do wish there had been more information in the story though. I’m all about the world building so I need as much information as I can get (well, in small, frequent doses).

All in all, this was an epic start to a series

[katie]

Even better the second time I read it!

[Jo]

4.5 Stars.

I received this eProof for free from Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Trigger Warning: This book features kipnap, attempted murder, and experimentation on people.

Being the huge fantasy fan that I am, when I first heard of Furyborn by Claire Legrand, it sounded right up my street. Then, after reading Legrand's Sawkill Girls, which was bloody incredible, I was even more excited to read Furyborn. Though I put it off a while after reading a few negative reviews. I should have ignored them, though, because Furyborn is brilliant!

Rielle is the daughter of the King's Lord Commander, and as such, has grown up being friends with Prince Audric and Lady Ludivine, Audric's cousin. But she hides a secrets; in a world where people have the magic to control one of the elements - wind, water, fire, sun, earth, metal, and shadows - when holding their cast, Rielle can control all seven, with no cast. And accidentally killed her mother in a fire when she was five-years-old. Since, her father has sworn her to secrecy, forcing her into an education to control and push down her power for the safety of others. But when Audric is attacked by assassins during a horse race, she does all she can to try and save him, letting her magic loose - and almost killing everyone in the city at the same time. It's only the fact that there is a prophecy that there will be two queens who can control all the elements, the Blood Queen who will destroy, and the Sun Queen, who will save, that keeps her from execution. To prove she is the Sun Queen, she must make it through seven elemental trials, to prove she can control her powers, each one more dangerous than the last.
A thousand years later, Eliana is the Dread of Orline, a masked bounty hunter who brings in or kills those she is ordered to by the Undying Empire - namely, rebels and those trying to escape the Empire's harsh rule. She's good at it, something she takes pride in, but she tries not to think about it too much; if she cared, she couldn't do it, and this is the only way she and her family can survive. But when her mother goes missing, like many other women and girls have. A rebel captain, Wolf, demands her help, but she only agrees in exchange for his help in finding her mother, and getting her, her mother, and her brother Remy to safety in the free country of Astavar. But while helping Wolf, she discovers what she thought she knew about the Empire's tyranny is nothing compared to the lengths the Emperor will go - and she might be the only one who can stop him.

Mate, Furborn was incredible! I did wonder if I would be captivated by two stories set a thousand years apart, but oh my god, I was! The story is told in alternating chapters from Rielle and Eliana's points of view. Each chapter is fairly short, and almost all end on their own cliff hanger, and so I was always desperate to read more. There was only short while for a few chapters towards the beginning where I was more interested in Eliana's story than Rielle's, but Rielle's soon picked up, and I needed to know what was going to happen to both of them!

The changes that have happened over the span of a thousand years leaves Eliana's world almost unrecognisable as Rielle's world. There are no more Kings and Queens, no more magic - just the Emperor and his tyrannical rule. They're also set on different continents, so they could have been completely different stories. Everyone knows of the legendary Queen Rielle in Eliana's time, but the world is so different, she seems no more than a legend. But the prophecy is of two queens, and who is which? I have to say, I wish we didn't have the prologue. The prologue is one big huge spoiler. It tells us how one character's story ends - and therefore, who they are - and massively hints about the story of the other, to the point where I was 99% sure about something major, that really, I would have preferred to have discovered over the course of the story as a whole. But even though I knew a hell of a lot more than I wanted to, I was still completely captivated by the story, desperate to know what led to that ending for one girl, and what this would mean for the other.

I loved both Rielle and Eliana. They are both hugely flawed characters, and in a lot of ways, they're not good people. Rielle makes choices and keeps secrets that had me shouting at her not to. Eliana has killed innocents, and led children to their death, for an Emperor who wants to rule all. But they're both human. Rielle has kept the secret of her powers ever since she was five, and been pretty much hated by her father ever since. Now she is not only allowed to use her powers freely, to their full extent, she enjoys it. Despite the fact that people are scared of her and what she could do. She's desperate to prove that she can control her power, that she won't hurt anyone, that she is their Sun Queen and will keep them safe - to have them love her, when there's been such a lack of love from her father. Even though she could die in the trials. Even though she could hurt people if she makes one mistake. And this is her motivation behind some of the choices she makes. And the secrets she keeps... well, I can't really comment without spoiling it, but mate, I wanted to shake her! And while I wasn't so interested in the trials themselves (there are so many fantasy novels with trials in, I'm kind of past this trope now), I was completely invested in what those trials led to in her story. She's not just taking part in trials, there's so much else going on.

Eliana is a badass. She has been taught from a young age how to be a bounty hunter by her mother, and her mother taught her well. She's not known as the Dread of Orline for nothing. She is deadly with her knives, and no-one can best her. Under the Emperor's rule, this she must do to keep her family safe. Any feelings she has about what she does - about the people she captures and sends to those who work for the Emperor, knowing their fate - she pushes down, like her mother taught. If she feels, she can't do her job. If she can't do her job, she can't keep her family safe. She's made herself hard and cocky, to protect her mind and her heart from what she has to do. But when her mother disappears, all bets are off. When her latest mark, Wolf, a rebel captain she has been commanded to capture, tells her he can help her find her mother in exchange for her help, it's not something she can refuse. And with the added promise of getting her family safely to Astavar, where they will be out of the Emperor's reach, Eliana joins the rebels. But she cares neither for the rebels nor the Empire, only her family, and she will do what she thinks right for the sake of them, only.

The relationships in this book! Eliana's relationship with her younger brother, Remy, is just so gorgeous. He's ten-years-old, and he's adorable. And it's so surprising that he has such strong morals, given what his sister does. It is very clear to him what is right and what is wrong, and he hates Eliana's job, and wants her to stop, but she can't. He's a little bit of a dreamer, in that he has hope and believes things can get better, where Eliana is more of the opinion that they should make the best of the crap their in, and keep them safe. But he's so smart, too! And Eliana would die for him.

The relationship between Rielle, Audric and Ludivine was also beautiful. They are such good friends, especially Audric and Ludivine, who stick by Rielle's side no matter what - which I sometimes had difficulty with considering Rielle's secrets. But they are so fiercely loyal and stand up for her and support her whenever they can. God, I loved them! There's only the complication that Rielle is in love with Audric, where Audric and Ludivine are betrothed, arranged by parents. This is hard for Rielle, which again, is the reason for some of her idiocy, but I really felt for her. And as a group, the three are just wonderful! I loved them!

This book is also hugely diverse! There's no mention of races, but everyone's skin colour is mentioned - no white default! King Bastien has dark skin, Queen Genoveve has pale skin, so Audric is darker than his mother, but lighter than his father. Harkan, Eliana's best friend and lover, has dark skin, and Navi, a princess of Astavar who was spying on the Empire, that Eliana and the Wolf rescue, has brown skin. Rielle has pale skin, as does Eliana. There's also no mention of sexuality, but Eliana has had female and male lovers, and Rille mentions having sexy dreams of men and women.

The ending of Furyborn is just incredible, because you realise, despite everything that has happened over the course of the book - and it's a lot - it's only now that the story is really beginning, for both Rielle and Eliana. We haven't yet reached the end we saw for one of the characters at the beginning. There's so much more ahead for both of them, and I absolutely cannot wait! Furyborn was so exciting and completely gripping, and has definitely reaffirmed to me that Legrand is an author to watch. I cannot wait for the sequel, Kingsbane!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley for the eProof.

[Beth C.]

Whew. It's a LOT of book. But I quite liked it, and I look forward to the sequel. The alternating perspectives could have been confusing, but the two (strong, female) characters were so different that it wasn't difficult to tell them apart. Interesting story, and well written.

[pagingserenity]

Full review on Paging Serenity.

Furyborn is a beautifully written story that sets itself apart from your generic YA fantasy. But however different it and all of its elements appear, the story suffers from an abundance of foreshadowing and inconsistent character development.

[tweetybugshouse]

I had the honor of reading and reviewing an early review copy via sourcebooks netgalley copy.  This is a unique story of two girls who have grown up with the whispers of a prophecy of a queen will that will rise with the power to save or destroy the world.  The complexity in this story comes from the fact that the girls stories are told in tandem but they are thousand years apart.  It was a unique way to tell the story.  My main issue that i found as this is marketed as a teen story and i did feel the level of sexual intensity might be pushing it a bit for a teen novel.  Not that it took much away from the story but i was not expecting the amount of description that i did read.  The author does a fantastic job with the world building of this story and i am eager to read the following books. 

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Furyborn in exchange for a fair and honest review.

There’s been a lot of talk of Furyborn being the book of the year, so of course I’ve heard about it and was naturally tempted to give it a try. Furyborn is the first in the Empirium trilogy, which is a young adult fantasy series. I’ll be honest with you though, the real thing that caught my attention? It was totally the cover. The cover is so pretty that it wiped away any doubt I had about reading this book (I know, I’m such a sucker for nice covers. I can’t help it).



Furyborn is one of those books that you pick it up, feeling a bit curious, only to have the first chapter/prologue be this huge and immersive event. Obviously you need to keep reading to know more, if nothing else than to sate your curiosity. The first scene does start at the conclusion of one character’s plot, so it is a bit of a spoiler (personally I was okay with that; sometimes I’d rather know how things are going to end up for a character).
While some would disagree, I actually felt like things dropped off a bit, after that first moment. Once past the action I couldn’t ignore the fact that I didn’t know any of these characters, and it took me a really long time to start caring about all of them (not going to lie here, pretty sure most of my favorite characters are all secondary characters, and I’m totally okay with that).
Furyborn is the tale of two queens; one with the ability to destroy and one with the ability to create and repair. That description is a bit vague, but it’s all we have to go on for quite some time, so you get pretty used to it after a while.
Rielle is the character’s whose ending we get to see in the beginning, while Elaina lives her life a thousand years later. The chapters switch back and forth between the two, and while they think in strikingly similar manners I didn’t have any trouble keeping the two plots distinct (the different timeline and supporting cast helped quite a bit here).
I’m sure that everyone will have a different queen they liked best, assuming they found themselves attached to either (I’ve seen a decent amount of people hating both characters, so I can’t ignore this fact). I personally found the world that Elaina’s story was set in more interesting, but her personality was too abrasive. Therefore I was fonder of Rielle, even knowing what I did about her and her future.
I want to say it wasn’t until about the halfway mark in this book that I found myself getting really hooked (I actually kept taking breaks in it, since I wasn’t feeling connected to either main character). If you find yourself struggling with it I’d suggest giving it until at least this point before you call quits.
I’m very curious about the world and magical systems that were introduced here, and I think that’s why I ended up liking this novel as much as I did. I’m a sucker for series with unique takes on magic and world building. I feel like there was a lot of teasing going on – lots of magic shown but not explained, and little bits of the world revealed here and there. I would have loved to see more of both, but that may have been intentional. After all, it pretty much guaranteed that I’m going to follow up with the rest of the series.
It was only after I finished Furyborn that I heard it described as a bi fantasy. For the sake of honesty I have to tell you that I found these points to be pretty subtle and not well defined. Most of the information dropped was either done hastily or hinted at. It’s not what I personally would consider a bi fantasy, especially considering it was all relatively minor. I actually almost missed the revelation (Spoiler warning) that Elaina may be bi (I say may here because she uses sex as a weapon, so it is difficult to tell at times if she’s attracted to someone or using them). Rielle expresses curiosity towards her sexuality, but really she’s too obsessed with Audric for that to really go anywhere.
While I wouldn’t say that this novel ends on a cliffhanger (the plot is left open but the current peril was wrapped up) it does end somewhat abruptly. I think it was the storytelling style that made it feel that way; both characters really only got half a book to start their story, so there’s still quite a bit left for them to say.
All in all I’m really happy I continued to read this book, instead of giving up on it. I know there are some divided opinions on this book (it seems like most people have either loved it or hated it, with very little room in between). I’m a bit more on the fence, having enjoyed it but not gone over the moon for it. I still don’t find myself especially attached to either queen (though like I said I do have a favorite out of the two) but I am very much curious to see what happens next.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[emruth13]

This book was SOOOO good! I was hooked from the very beginning and this book never let me go!

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

I admit had some concerns about Furyborn before going into it. The plot summary on the jacket seemed like one of those unwieldy things where the editor(s) couldn’t quite figure out how to convey what the main point of the story was, so they just kept writing, and I had questions about how the stories of two queens born 1000 years apart were going to converge. After reading Furyborn…I realize my concerns were well-founded.

I think high fantasy like Furyborn often gets a pass on some striking flaws because when a book is “high concept,” readers can step back and say, “Oh, but it’s so imaginative! So creative! So unique!” It’s harder to do this with a book that’s, say, about a girl going to prom. If the pacing is off there, the pacing is off, and readers aren’t going to excuse it because some shiny magic or badass speeches about saving the world compensated for it. Basically what I’m saying is that I have conflicted feelings about Furyborn because I am experiencing this; I had definite issues with this book, but the cool world building occasionally made me think that maybe I could deal with them.

The primary problem: The book purports to have two protagonists with chapters alternating their points of view—but keep in mind that these protagonists live over 1000 years apart. My concerns that their storylines would be too disparate were well-founded. For the vast majority of the book, I felt as though I were reading too entirely separate novels. Honestly, I think in some ways the book could use a complete overhaul. The novel should have been about the “present day” queen, and the history of the older queen 1000 years in the past should have been woven in. Why the author decided to write these two things as parallel stories, and why the editor kept it, is beyond me. It may be unique, but I think there’s a reason people don’t generally write books like this; it doesn’t really work.

I also got annoyed that there was basically a cliff-hanger at the end of every chapter (until Rielle began completing a sequence of tasks, for which the outcome was obvious because…Eliana’s half of the book is set 1000 years in the future, and all the characters already know all about Rielle’s life). Some reader may actually find these cliff-hangers engaging, so it’s a personality thing, but I found it incredibly frustrating to keep jumping between two different stories that were always keeping information just out of reach.

Finally, I just didn’t really connect with any of the characters in the book—the protagonists or their various love interests. The author does try to make the characters complex, and I applaud that effort, but Eliana has the issue that she’s obnoxious and I mostly felt that other characters kept *telling* me she is secretly a wonderful person with a good heart, but it was hard to see why they thought so. Rielle is more interesting in terms of whether she’s good/bad, but I think all the things I actually wanted to know about her weren’t in this book and I need to wait for the sequel (which I won’t be reading BTW).

So, why three stars? Yeah…because it’s high fantasy, and it’s sort of original and all that stuff I said above. I haven’t read a book *quite* like this before, so it stands out. The magic is interesting. The religion is interesting. The plot is occasionally interesting. The author is clearly trying to write something awesome and epic. It didn’t work for me, but I can respect parts of it.