A Golden Fury, By Samantha Cohoe ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Historical Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Suspense, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: October 13th, 2020

352 Pages

Synopsis: 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 Stone’s promise of riches is within 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 loose her sanity, or let the people she loves die.

Gorgeous cover + the Philosopher’s Stone + rogue alchemists = a MUST READ for me! As soon as my eyes spied A Golden Fury on NetGalley, I requested it and was so excited to be approved. After reading it over the last three days I’m happy to say that for the most part it lived up to its promise. It starts out a bit slow, but it doesn’t take long for the pace to pick up. I loved the settings, the storyline, the world building, but was left with mixed feelings toward the characters, particularly Thea. I thought she was a very strong female protagonist except when it came to her one blind spot, (which in order to avoid spoilers I’m not going to name). Let me just say that I don’t think it fit with the rest of her actions. I’m also a bit torn over the last few chapters, which took a decidedly dark turn. I love action-packed climaxes and deviating away from the typical happily-ever-after, but this was a little melodramatic and I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. Overall though, I enjoyed A Golden Fury even with its imperfections and I unhesitatingly recommend it to fans of historical fantasy that has darker themes. It’s a solid debut by Cohoe and I’m looking forward to seeing what she dreams up next.

Literary Lines

Tags

Literary Lines, Voltaire

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.

~ Voltaire, Questions Sur Les Miracles ~

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, By Christopher Paolini ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 15th, 2020

880 Pages

Synopsis: A brand new space opera on an epic scale from the New York Times bestselling author of a beloved YA fantasy series.

It was supposed to be a routine research mission on an uncolonized planet. But when xenobiologist Kira Navárez finds an alien relic beneath the surface of the world, the outcome transforms her forever and will alter the course of human history.

Her journey to discover the truth will thrust her into the wonders and nightmares of first contact, epic space battles for the fate of humankind, and the farthest reaches of the galaxy. 

Christopher Paolini is the author of the bestselling The Inheritance Cycle which was both beloved by millions of readers and criticized for its stereotypical characters and awkward grammatical structure. Despite the series’ flaws, what was always apparent to me, was that Paolini was a gifted storyteller. With his first adult book, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, my feelings regarding his writing remain much the same. Once again, his characters are the weakest part, making it frustratingly difficult at times to connect with them. And, his prose is still somewhat clunky and could use some finessing. However, my goodness, this man knows how to spin a story! No dragons here, but plenty of fascinating aliens, thrilling space battles, and epic world building. Space operas aren’t one of my usual preferred genres, but I was utterly mesmerized the entire time I was reading. The book is almost 900 pages yet I finished it in a few days, which should tell you what a page-turner it is. I was going to give this 3 1/2 stars, but upon reflection I’m rounding it up to 4 stars, because just as he did with his fantasy series, Paolini again captured my complete attention with the sheer breadth of his imagination.