A Golden Fury is an atmospheric debut that starts strong with the smart and wilful Thea, but slowly descends into madness and drama along with its characters. A worthwhile read that unfortunately left me wanting a bit more.
Thea longs to step outside the looming shadow cast by her intense mother and become an alchemist in her own right. But when her mother creates, then destroys in a fit of madness, the famed Philosopher’s Stone, Thea finds herself sent off to Oxford and a father she has never known. The alchemists in Oxford, her father amongst them, do not believe Thea about the madness caused by the stone and seek to create the stone for their own glory. With treachery and madness circling her, Thea must find a way to master the stone’s curse and save those she loves.
This is a solid debut from Samantha Cohoe. You can see the time and effort put into studying the time period, alchemy, and the creation of atmosphere. But to my dismay, there seemed to be little put into character building beyond Thea, and though she is a mostly admirable main character, everything falls flat around her, leaving the story somewhat lacklustre.
So, let’s start with the good: atmosphere. A Golden Fury is rich with atmosphere. From the idyllic, golden spring in France that becomes marred with Thea’s mother’s descent into madness to the dreary, mysterious Oxford where Thea must navigate the gentleman scholar’s world. You can practically feel the worlds around you as Cohoe builds her scenes. Whether you are a historical fiction reader or not, it would be difficult to not get swept away in Cohoe’s writing style.
Thea starts off as a strong and smart 17-yea- old girl, who has the spirit that is held back by her mother’s ego and the patriarchy of that time period. Seeing the complexities of Thea’s relationship with her mother unfold is enthralling and you could see the internal dilemma of loving a parent, but needing to break free from their hold. Thea’s character continues to cut through the chapters as she comes face to face with her father and his colleagues. She never backs down and you come to love her for that. Then enters the lost first love and all that strength goes right out the window.
The problem is that Will and Thea’s romance mostly happens before the story, which leaves us with very little feeling about the feelings Thea has for Will. Yes, there is some rehashing of their past in the beginning of the book, but it doesn’t do enough to believable build up Thea throwing away her sanity for this boy that the reader will clearly be able to see is a wastrel. Had there been less emphasis on Will being the main reason for her choices, Thea could have come out of this story with more respect. While there is something to be said for the fact that Thea is 17 and “everyone makes silly choices when it comes to first love”, but the execution left Thea looking like a love sick idiot, rather than the strong, smart young woman I had hoped she would be.
The rest of the cast of characters get very little development, which is a shame. I would have loved a bit more about Thea’s mother, a lot more of Dominic, way more of Valentin, and hell, even more of Thea’s fool of a father. There was so much potential for a full, rich cast of characters, but it never came to be.
The same could be said about the plot. While it started strong, the moment Will shows up, the story stalls out. And while the alchemy was fascinating, I felt that it was overshadowed by the dramatics of the end plot.
At the end of the day, A Golden Fury just suffered from a want of more. More strength, more plot, more remembering that first loves in the 1700s are probably just going to screw you over in the end. Though there were a few missteps in this debut, Samantha Cohoe definitely shows potential for dark and decadent fiction and I look forward to seeing what she has in store for us in the future.
A Golden Fury is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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.
