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.
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