ARC Review & Blog Tour: A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe

TW self-harm, mental illness / madness

I really enjoyed this book and was hooked throughout. Thea is a very strong and determined character, and she has to overcome a lot of disappointment and people trying to take Alchemy from her, after being raised to think that Alchemy is all she has.

My favorite part of the story was the madness – yes, I know, it’s actually a very large part of the story, so I guess it’s good that I liked it. It was very well done, and as someone who is bipolar and has experienced my own form of madness, it felt very very real and believable. I really identified with Thea as she slowly succumbs to the madness, desperately fighting it off to finish what she feels she has to do.

The ending with the Stone was a nice twist and was solidly backed up by previous events, so I never felt thrown out of the story.

The characters were all intriguing, and even though most of them didn’t get a lot of page time compared to Thea, I really enjoyed all of them. I especially liked Thea’s mother and the Comte and kind of wish we’d seen more of them. I also found myself really liking Valentin as the story progressed.

All in all a very satisfying standalone. Even though it’s not technically bipolar rep, I feel like it really captures the spirit of bipolar rep so I’m mentally adding it to that shelf in my brain.

Get it here!

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday books for providing an e-arc for review.

Here’s some info on the book with an excerpt:

Set in eighteenth century England, Samantha Cohoe’s debut novel, A GOLDEN FURY (Wednesday Books; October 13, 2020), follows a young alchemist as she tries to save the people she loves from the curse of the Philosopher’s Stone. The streets of London and Oxford come to life as this historical fantasy unravels. Weaving together an alluring story of magic and danger, Samantha’s debut has her heroine making messy decisions as she toes the line between good and evil while it becomes blurred.

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 promise of the Stone’s riches is in 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 sacrifice her sanity, or let the people she loves die.

A GOLDEN FURY and the curse of the Philosopher’s Stone will haunt you long after the final page.

About the Author

Samantha Cohoe writes historically-inspired young adult fantasy. She was raised in San Luis Obispo, California, where she enjoyed an idyllic childhood of beach trips, omnivorous reading, and writing stories brimming with adverbs. She currently lives in Denver with her family and divides her time among teaching Latin, mothering, writing, reading, and deleting adverbs. A Golden Fury is her debut novel.