A Tale of Conflicting Narratives: A Golden Fury – A Blog Tour Review

I have given A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe a ☆☆☆ rating. It is a standalone. It is Young Adult Fantasy and Historical Fiction. Wednesday Books publishes it. It will be published October 13th, 2020.

The blurb reads:

Set in eighteenth century England, Samantha Cohoe’s debut novel, A GOLDEN FURY, 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.

• ISBN: 9781250220400
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Hi, book fam! Dealing with an increasing workload and experiencing quite a fair bit of burnout and isolation as I continue to work from home has pretty much made it radio silent on my end for the past month. But, I hope the rest of you guys are doing wonderfully and coping well as we work to get through this pandemic. As always, stay safe, wear a mask and wash your hands!

Today, I am bringing you my review for Samantha Cohoe’s A Golden Fury which is perfect for spooky month! A huge thank you to Wednesday Books who never fails to spoil me with blog tours for the best and most exciting releases. Big shout out to Meghan who never fails to include me in her lists, although at this point, I think they’re pretty much automated. But, enough of my rambling, pompous review coming up! Minor character spoilers ahead — do skip the section on characters to avoid any spoilers.

A Golden Fury: A Tale of Conflicting Narratives

Imagine a rollercoaster ride. Now, imagine riding that rollercoaster, filled with tons of loop-de-loops, sharp turns and even sharper drops. You’d probably leave the ride with shaky legs, out of breath from screaming and with an exhilaration you can’t explain. That’s reading A Golden Fury. It’s pretty clichéd to describe a book as a rollercoaster ride but there’s no other way to describe it. As I reached the end of the book, furiously flipping the pages, I was left dazed, utterly confused yet feeling a rather chilling sense of thrill running through my bones.

A Golden Fury is a beautifully written standalone, filled with eerie yet romantic Gothic atmosphere with compelling characters and a fascinating use of alchemy. However, there is almost a confusingly written feminist theme and a severe lack of trigger warnings. But, the flaw that plagues A Golden Fury the most is that the book seems to be split into two narratives that suffer a fierce disconnect with a rather trippy and disorienting narrative in the second half.

We begin in Normandy, France, where we meet Thea Hope, who has been trained her whole life to be an alchemist by her mother, one of the most famous practitioners of alchemy in Europe. The pair are so close to the ultimate alchemist’s dream: the Philosopher’s Stone. At the same time, trouble stirs in France and being English, Thea and her mother find themselves in a sticky political situation. But, before they can embark on the final step of the process, Thea’s mother locks her out of her laboratory which infuriates Thea; there can only be one reason why her mother has done so: she wants all the fame and glory for herself.  However, Thea’s mother insists that it is love, that has made Thea unworthy of finishing the Philosopher’s Stone, after discovering Thea with her apprentice, Will.

In the midst of a political uprising and the breakdown of a mother and daughter’s relationship, Thea’s mother succumbs to madness while making the Philosopher’s Stone, almost killing Thea. Thea learns that there is a curse on the stone: anyone who attempts to make it will lose their marbles, unless the stone deems them worthy. Thea has nowhere to turn to but to her birth father in Oxford, a man she has never known her entire life. But Thea leaves behind a dangerous political environment and a mad mother for more danger and death as she finds that there is no one she can trust; everyone is out to get the Philosopher’s Stone and they will stop at nothing to have it.

Fascinating with its alchemy and hauntingly beautiful in Gothic-styled story telling, A Golden Fury suffers from one major flaw, it feels like two different books. However, before we get into that, let me tell you what I loved about A Golden Fury.

Characters: The Stars of the Show!

Although the characters of A Golden Fury will not make my top ten favourites of all time list, there is no denying that they are well-written and compelling, encouraging the readers to cheer them on despite some illogical decisions they might make. Especially Thea Hope.

Far from your run of the mill YA heroine with nary a hair out of place and is perfection incarnate, Thea Hope is flawed to a point where I almost dislike her character but love her for it. Like her mother, Thea is arrogant and selfish; after all, if you have been raised by the best, you’d think you were the best. As she accuses her mother of wanting fame and glory, so does Thea, at her core. She often wants to be recognised for the work she has done at helping her mother. At the same time, Thea is incredibly naïve and ignorant to the ways of the world, trundling about France and England like a lost lamb. However, despite all these negative and frustrating qualities, Thea has a lot of heart and it shows when she desperately saves Dominic, her father’s assistant, from being wrongfully accused of a crime he didn’t commit by dragging him halfway across England. And as the series of events in the books escalate, constantly sacrifices herself to save the lives of those she loves.

As A Golden Fury is told from the first person point of view, we hardly get to learn about the other characters except through Thea’s eyes. This lends the characters to being rather cardboard and one-dimensional but as human nature goes, we tend to separate people into categories as well. Despite this, we are introduced to a wide range of characters that I both loathe and empathise with like:

• Dominic, whom I absolutely adore but sadly has less page time than I expected
• Will, Thea’s one-time lover and her mother’s ex-apprentice, whom I absolutely hated but understood
• Vellacott, Thea’s father, whom I absolutely hated but came to accept
• Valentin, one of Thea’s captors, whom I fell in love with and wanted to know so much more
• Rahel, daughter of Thea’s captor, who is so confusing and unlikeable
• Marguerite, Thea’s mother, whom we barely get to spend enough time with to dissect her motivations and actions

and the list goes on. The impression of these characters are often fleeting and if you noticed the same thing that I did, you get a cookie!

Confusing Flaws: Are We Talking About Feminism? Where are the Trigger Warnings?

Feminism or Not?

Yes, if you guessed that almost everyone Thea seems to interact with is a man, you get a cookie. Save for her mother, Rahel and Rahel’s sister who is only alluded to in character dialogue.

It is clear that on some level, there is an element of feminism at play in A Golden Fury. Marguerite espouses about how love made Thea weak and she was too easily swayed by the ways of men all while she takes men as patrons and lovers, using them for their money to fund her work. And, she is revered and sought after as one of the most famed and beautiful alchemists in Europe despite alchemy being a male-dominated field. Rahel also laments the wicked ways of men and about how women should know better and rise above their social expectations. And, although it is her father who wants the Philosopher’s Stone, we see Rahel commanding the army of men sent out to retrieve it. However, despite this demonstration of women being in powerful positions, both Marguerite and Rahel are painted as antagonists. And both women have a common goal: getting Thea to believe that men have ulterior motives, specifically Will, and will use any way to get what they want.

Although Thea is no less independent and seems to be able to traipse through Europe despite being rather sheltered, every decision she makes seems designed to save the men around her (and her mother as well but, the motivation to save her is weaker). Furthermore, men like Dominic, Valentin and Vellacort are shown to be remorseful, full of emotion and caring. While Marguerite and Rahel are portrayed as one-dimensional  I cannot help but wonder if this line of feminism had been given any thought or if it is just a coincidence of the storytelling.

Where are the Trigger Warnings?

A Golden Fury, like a lot of YA books, suffers from a severe lack of trigger warnings in a book that is filled with triggering material. Even I felt incredibly uncomfortable reading these parts and would have appreciated being warned beforehand. Henceforth, there will be a trigger warning for the subject material referenced in this section. Please do skip ahead if you’re not comfortable or feel unsafe with the following triggers: sexual assault, implied rape, attempted suicide, self-harm, abuse.

The most common crime that crops up in A Golden Fury is it’s use of rape as a threat and even in one situation where Thea experiences some form of sexual assault. In this instance, the assault occurred under the madness brought on by the curse of the Philosopher’s Stone and although Thea named her assailant, her father refused to believe her. It is incredibly disappointing that this scene had to be written as such as I believe that the events that occurred here could have been written without the need for sexual assault.

In other situations, Thea’s captors used rape to threaten her into obeying their orders but they also resort to abuse in order to demonstrate their power. It is clear in this situation that it was a power dynamic that this threat intended to show. Again, this was not necessary in order to demonstrate her captors cruelties and could have been written differently yet carry the same weight.

PWP: Plot What Plot?

Although not including trigger warnings with severely triggering material is an offense in and of itself, the worst offender of A Golden Fury is it’s conflicting narratives. And, I am not alone in feeling this way, judging from the Goodreads reviews.

A Golden Fury seems to be a book split into two different parts. It starts off incredibly strong with a voice and narrative that is without a doubt, Young Adult. Thea is strong and independent, wanting to find her place in this world and prove her capabilities while trying to save her mother’s life. She also meets a bevy of characters along the way. But as the plot progressed into the second half, the narrative seemed to fall apart and disconnected from the first half; except that we have alchemy and all the same characters.

We were removed completely from the settings established in the first half of the book and thrown into a different and disorienting one. It’s like the characters and plot were plucked from a different book and fused to the end of this one. Not much about the second half made much logical sense and things moved too fast and too weirdly for any of it to really sink in and make an impact. It lost a lot of it’s cohesiveness and focused almost singularly on Thea trying to make the Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemy curse and trying to save her loved ones. And while typing out the rough plot makes sense, reading it felt like a wild, rambunctious drug-induced trip.

But don’t get me wrong. The second half wasn’t badly written and in fact, I was drawn further into the story, if only to figure out the mystery at the end of it all. It had the same style of storytelling at the first half but the pacing and the underlying narrative took a strange turn that made reconciling it with the strong beginning very difficult. It seemed like two entirely different worlds.

Like the rollercoaster I described at the beginning of this review, I was just along for the ride and hanging on for dear life. After all, I had already gotten on and there was no way to get off.

In conclusion, A Golden Fury is a beautifully written piece of art and I admire Cohoe’s ability to tell a stunning standalone story in less than 400 pages. While I loved the characterisation of Thea and the other characters, the beautiful writing and breakneck pace as we reached the ending, much is left to be desired in the confusing and conflicting plots and the severe lack of trigger warnings. But I did enjoy reading this successful, spooky debut and cannot wait to read more from Cohoe!

Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

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.