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.

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Published October 13th 2020 by Wednesday

ISBN13: 9781250220400

Edition Language English

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3.5 books

I received an e-arc from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

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A female alchemist, The Philosophers Stone and the cover had me sold. I felt that this fell a bit flat.

It was hard for me to connect to the characters, but I think it was meant to be that way since Thea and her mother were both scientists and their main focus was completing the stone. Thea’s mother was cold toward her, her attention was on the stone and nothing else. Thea’s mother went mad from creating the stone and tried killing Thea in the process.

Thea in turn travels to Oxford to meet the father she never knew, who is both shocked and a bit cold toward Thea since her mother never told him about her even existing. Along with meeting her father for the first time, Thea meets Dominic who is her father’s assistant. Dominic helps Thea with trying to create the stone again in her father’s lab, but once again the madness shows up and Thea’s life is once again in jeopardy and this time someone does die.

Thea and Dominic run to London to turn to Will, who was an assistant to Thea’s mother and a love interest of Thea’s. When they reach London Thea does manage to find Will, but his health is not the best, and once again Thea is pulled into making the Philosophers Stone for a wealthy benefactor that Will owes a debt too.

Thea has a blind love and devotion toward Will despite her mother forcing him out of his apprenticeship once she found out about the relationship between the two. Thea discovers that Will had been hiding a secret from her and she is still willing to make deals with his benefactor to save him after she makes the Philosophers Stone.

It felt that the last this of the book was rushed. The author was trying to find a quick way to wrap it up after Thea was able to make the stone and couldn’t really find a way to end it. I understand that this is a debut novel, but I’d be willing to give the author another chance on any future books she writes.

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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.

Samantha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/smcohoe

Samantha’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samanthacohoe/

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Buy link for A GOLDEN FURY: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/a-golden-fury/