Blog Tour - Review: A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe

Title: A Golden Fury

Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction/Fantasy

Author: Samantha Cohoe

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Publication: October 13th 2020

Cover Rating: 5/5

Reading Format: Provided eARC + Finished Copy

Goodreads | Purchase

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 by Samantha Cohoe is the story of Thea Hope and her journey to create the Philosopher's Stone, the mythical object that can turn things to gold and also heal ailments and make a person immortal.

Thea’s mother has been allowing her to train under her as an alchemist but all of a sudden her mother bans her from the lab and starts to show signs of sickness, a sickness that soon turns into a madness and her mother ends up destroying the thing both of them have been working so hard to achieve... the Philospher’s Stone.

After this event, Thea is sent to live with her Father, a man who doesn’t know she exists, who also happens to be an alchemist trying to achieve the same thing Thea and her mother almost succeeded at. And thus begins a dangerous journey full of people trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone but still needing the one vital thing to make it work, the one vital thing that Thea happens to have. But what happens when no one believes Thea when she says creating the stone will cause a sickness?

I truly enjoyed this story. I loved the characters, the plot, the timeline, literally everything. The authors writing flowed together very well and that made this story such a quick and wonderful read.

Thea is a strong main character but she is a little too trusting, too hopeful, and that comes back to bite her in the butt. She does learn from her mistakes and figures out that her mother might have been harsh but she was right about the guy she chose to give her heart to being not exactly who he appeared to be. Because of this, Thea finds herself in many sticky situations.

In the end, I believe Thea made the right choices for herself and the people she cares about. This story was beautifully written and I am so glad this book was on my radar. I can’t wait to see what the author writes in the future. Oh, and most men are scoundrels, that is all.

Overall, I gave the book 4.5/5 stars.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books and Samantha Cohoe for the promotional copies of this book and for inviting me to be on this tour. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own and are not in any way altered by the fact that the book was sent to me for free.

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

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

Wednesday Books Twitter: https://twitter.com/wednesdaybooks

Wednesday Books Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wednesdaybooks/

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

REVEW: Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards

Title: Five Total Strangers

Genre: Young Adult Thriller

Author: Natalie D. Richards

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publication: October 6th 2020

Cover Rating: 5/5

Reading Format: Provided ARC

Goodreads | Amazon

A hitched ride home in a snow storm turns sinister when one of the passengers is plotting for the ride to end in disaster.

When Mira flies home to spend Christmas with her mother in Pittsburgh, a record-breaking blizzard results in a cancelled layover. Desperate to get to her grief-ridden mother in the wake of a family death, Mira hitches a ride with a group of friendly college kids who were on her initial flight.

As the drive progresses and weather conditions become more treacherous, Mira realizes that the four other passengers she's stuck in the car with don't actually know one another.

Soon, they're not just dealing with heavy snowfall and ice-slick roads, but the fact that somebody will stop at nothing to ensure their trip ends in a deadly disaster.

Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards is the story of Mira and her quest to get home to her mother on Christmas so she doesn't have to spend it alone with terrible, haunting memories.

Mira hops on a plane to head home for Christmas to be with her mother but we soon learn that there is a massive blizzard about to hit. Her plane lands but she cannot catch her next one because all flights have been canceled. Great, now how does she get home? She can't imagine leaving her mother alone at a time like this when just last year on Christmas day she and her mother lost someone very precious to them. But what else can she do? Oh, that's right, her awesome seatmate on the plane invited her on a car ride across Pennsylvania, she should probably take her up on that offer, right?

WRONG....

Just Mira and her seatmate, Harper, ends up turning into Mira, Harper, and 3 total strangers. They are all college kids though so Mira thinks she's pretty safe; plus she can't leave her mom alone. She just can't. So five total strangers rent an SUV and set off from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in hopes of making it home for the holidays.

I'll be home for the holidays...? Not if you are dead, you won't.

I really enjoyed this book. I LOVE snow but driving in it scares the crap out of me. Oh, and guess what? I am VERY familiar with the route these kids take in the book so you better believe I was yelling at them when they decided to switch routes. YOU DON'T TAKE THAT DANG HIGHWAY, GUYS!!!! But did they listen to me? Noooo, of course not. So they end up pretty much stranded in a blizzard in the middle of fricken Pennsyltucky. You might think things couldn't get worse but oh they most certainly do! Things start to go missing, one of the strangers might be a drug addict, one might be a felon and one might be Mira's stalker, the stalker Mira doesn't know she has.

In the end, this story really freaked me out. The snow, the location, and me being very well acquainted with it and just the overall atmosphere of the book is the perfect recipe for thrills and chills. And at the end of the book, the only advice I can give anyone is TRUST YOUR GUT!

Overall, I gave the book 4.5/5 stars.