Published: October 13, 2020
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Series: Standalone
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 352 (Hardcover)
My Rating: 3.5/5.0
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
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.
This was a unique YA reading experience for a number of reasons. First of all, how often do you actually get a book about alchemists? It’s rare to see a book about alchemists and not just featuring alchemy as background noise or world building filler. It also read as much more emotionally mature than many YA books and as such, I do think it would appeal to the adult fantasy audience. That being said, content-wise it is definitely teen appropriate.
Creating the philosopher’s stone is the ultimate goal of all alchemists. It offers power over all things, but it comes with a price. The stone chooses who it will allow to be it’s master and all others will be driven to madness. Thea Hope and her mother were working on creating the stone until her mother banned her from the lab and went mad. She had created it, but was rejected. Thea left France, went to Oxford, and found her estranged father who was also trying to create the stone. Her knowledge of the process made her a valuable target and she had a number of dangerous encounters.
Ultimately, this book is about Thea trying to recreate the stone so that she can heal her mother of her madness. She’s also trying to make a name for herself and become an alchemist in her own right. Throw in a side of bad romance and you’ve got yourself a proper story. The romance/love-interest part is actually pretty interesting because it’s not quite what you would expect. The love interest is her mother’s former alchemy assistant who got kicked out when he and Thea became friendly. He’s handsome, writes such kind letters, and is honestly a little shady.
While I was pretty interested in the first half of the book, my interest waned in the latter portion. The events began to drag and I didn’t care so much about the minor characters that were in peril. I found myself skimming until the plot advanced enough. The ending was unexpected and somewhat made up for the parts that plodded along. Overall, a good read and solid debut novel. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future releases from Samantha Cohoe!
Powder & Page 
I really loved this book but I completely agree the end was slow. I also wish we had gotten more alchemy in itself !
LikeLike