Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

See reviews first on my blog

A Golden Fury follows Thea who is an alchemist’s daughter. Her mom is one of the greatest alchemists of all time and has completed many things that other people have failed at, because of this she now wants to make the philosophers stone and receive all the benefits that come with it. The life these two live is a rather lonely one because it’s just been Thea and her mom for the most part as well as the patrons her mom gets to help fund her alchemy research.
Thea though fell for someone her mom had as an apprentice and this ended up being one of the reasons her mom pushed her away and sent away the apprentice. As time went on Thea’s mom decides to send her to England to meet the father she has never met and this is when the story really kicks off.
Once in England, she not only meets her father but the man he is working with, as well as his own apprentice who helps Thea, comes to terms with how her life is changing.

Thea and this apprentice end up becoming fast friends and the apprentice is the only one who believes Thea can do something but that she should because of what it could bring with it. This brings on a whole new set of problems as well as Thea having to deal with some people who are demanding she makes the stone to free the man she loves. This is where the bulk of the story happens and we get to see all the ups and downs of Thea’s life as well as learning all that comes with the Philosopher’s stone.

Overall I loved this book! Thea is a character that is smart and driven and because of those things she doesn’t let anything stop her. She gets into some pretty scary situations when it comes to doing alchemy and making sure it all goes correctly all while dealing with the curse that does things to people. We see so many people around her face the consequences of this curse and it gets questionable at times if she herself will end up succumbing to this curse or not. This part had me on the edge of my seat while reading because I had to know what would happen to her and if she would be the one that finally broke the curse. The curse on the stone made this book have so many twists and turns because of how unpredictable it made everything be with people reacting differently to it and either believing or not believing in it. Throughout so much of this book we spend it trying to figure out what will happen to Thea and those that she cares about and will the curse hurt them as well or will they be able to break it. All of that made me love this book even more because we truly get to see what people will sacrifice for those they love.

The historical part of this book I loved as well, getting to see the patronage system, as well as the apprentice system being used, was so nice to see in young adult books. I also enjoyed how we got to see Thea dealing with her father and how that looks for him to suddenly have a child show up when it comes to his status at the university and the research he wants to do. It was all a very real feeling. I did see some people saying how Thea reminds them of Audrey from the Stalking Jack the Ripper series and I can kind of see it. Having said that though they are both different people and the only real same thing I saw was their willingness to break social norms and pursue what they wanted to.

I highly recommend this book if your wanting a quick historical fiction read with some magical elements.