When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.
One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable—until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire’s heart 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 guess the best way to start off this review is by saying that I really, really wanted to love this book. Claire works at my library, I’ve met her, I’ve listened to her speak at a panel, she’s great. But as much as I tried to love this book, I just didn’t. It took me almost three weeks to read it and I ended up feeling really conflicted.
First things first, I don’t think this is a young adult book. Honestly, if I’d read this when I was within the target demographic, I would have been shocked. I’m more than fine with sexy scenes in my books (after all, I review erotica from time to time) but those are books written for adults. What I don’t expect when I’m reading a young adult book are scenes in which the heroine “felt herself stretch around his fingers” and the hero “slid one hand down her body to their joined hips [and] stroked between her legs.” The scenes are well-written and definitely very sexy, but I would feel weird about recommending this book to an actual minor.
Moving on from that, I want to address the fact that it took me three weeks to care about what was going on in this book. It took me three weeks to read the first 250 pages. I finally told myself that I was absolutely going to finish before I could go to bed and ended up powering through the second half of the book. The story did end up picking up a bit, but it’s really a shame that it took so long for me to care.
The last thing I want to talk about is just my personal opinion on the writing style, which is that I don’t really think it was for me. I felt that the pacing was off, with nothing happening followed by a couple of action scenes and then a large chunk of nothing again. I was also confused about what was happening in each timeline, but that’s possibly because it took me so long to read this book that I was just forgetting what had happened.
In the end, I was mostly just bored while I read this book. My mind wandered a lot. I found myself mindlessly scrolling through social media or just staring off into space and thinking about my life instead of paying attention to the book in front of me. It ended up being an okay book in the end, but I don’t know that I can really recommend it.
Have you read Furyborn? Have you read any of Claire Legrand’s other books?
Let’s talk in the comments!
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The Bibliophagist 
I haven’t read Furyborn yet but its sitting on my shelf. Just from the description I can tell that there’s a LOT going on in this book and it would have to be VERY well written to make it make sense.
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There really is a lot going on in this book. I hope that you enjoy it if you decide to read it! 🙂
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It took me like a few weeks to finish City of Brass mostly because I procrastinated and there was like nothing interesting happening so I could understand why it took you a while to finish Furyborn
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I’m glad I’m not the only one this happens to!
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I feel the same! It took me months to get through, and I found my biggest hurdle was that I just didn’t care that much. I think overall the story is an interesting one, but it wasn’t executed in a way I found riveting – or appropriate.
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I’m not necessarily happy that you felt the same (since I wish we both would have liked this more), but I’ve seen a ton of great reviews, so I’m glad I’m not alone in my opinion!
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WTF. No thanks!!!! I’m not into smut in my ya fantasy. I’m finally putting a nail on the coffin. Do not want. Lol
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Great review! I agree, this book was just okay for me.
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Thanks!
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I don’t remember that smut at all, but then again I really only remember lukewarm feelings from when I read this earlier in the year. Great review, Sara
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Thank you!
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This is a book that I continue to be unable to decide if I want to read it or not. I’ve seen such conflicting reviews that I can’t figure out if it’s worth my time. The concept is so interesting, yet I’ve heard a few people say the execution is lack luster. 🤔
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I do agree with that. I thought it was going to be better than it was, and it made me sad. Now I have to see Claire every day and know that I didn’t like her book, haha. 😦
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