Alchemised
4.7 | 15,576 ratings
Price: 20.36
Last update: 12-16-2025
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey
- Publication date : September 23, 2025
- Edition : Deluxe
- Language : English
- Print length : 1040 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593972708
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593972700
- Item Weight : 2.95 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.9 x 9.63 inches
- Best Sellers Rank:#102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Dark Fantasy
- Romantic Fantasy (Books)
- Action & Adventure Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:4.74.7 out of 5 stars(15,576)
Top reviews from the United States
- Katherin GomezBest book of the year!Best book I’ve read all year. Haunting, romantic, realistic even in a fictional and magical world. Raw, beautiful and left me absolutely in awe of character development, extreme enemies to lovers slow burn romance and some of the most genius and unexpected plot twists I’ve ever experienced in my life. I said experienced and not read for a reason. This book is an experience. One that will shatter you before it slowly puts you back together. Superb writing. 10/10
- CheylaBlew me awayI loved this book. Having read Manacled, I was familiar with the story structure this book would follow. At first I wondered if this would just be Manacled mad-libbed into a different book, but it isn’t. The author did a great job of creating an entirely different world with a different magic system. There were several new plot twists I didn’t anticipate. I had goosebumps for the last half of part two, and cried the entirety of part three. Part one had great sensory details that anchored you in the disgusting horror of the new world under the necromancers, and I was hooked early on. It covered several themes related to discrimination, loneliness, sacrifice, and love. I was blown away by them emotional intelligence and depth the author wrote with. Nothing was self-serving or gratuitous. The most horrific scenes are brief and written tastefully. Now, for my critique. The world-building in part one was a bit too expositiony for my tastes. Adding a couple more sensory details during the exposition to keep the reader in Helena’s POV would’ve made part one easier to read. Also, some of the story beats could’ve been made more impactful if the author had Helena respond to the plot points actively instead of passively. During part one, I felt like I was in a pity party for a character I didn’t know or care about as we watched the world happen around her. This changed, however, as soon as I hit part two. I was immediately able to connect with Helena on a human-level, and the book started to sing. I think part one should have undergone one more revision for this book to be perfect. That being said, books are written by people, and they are a form of art, and aren’t meant to be “perfect.” Some of the quarrels I had with this book, others might not care about at all. Some might even make the argument that it was the best way to write this book. This is just my opinion. I recommend Alchemised to everyone who is interested in it. My honest rating is 4.5/5⭐️
- Anastasia GoygovaA Masterful, Heart-Wrenching JourneyAlchemised absolutely blew me away. I knew it was inspired by Manacled—a story I’ve heard so much about but never actually read—yet it completely stood on its own and exceeded all my expectations. From the very first chapters, I was hooked. Despite being over 1,000 pages, I devoured it because the story never once lost my interest.
I’m usually not a fan of narratives that jump into the past, but here it was done so masterfully that it only deepened the emotional impact. The shifts in time added so much depth to the characters and their tragic histories. Each main character carried their own heartbreak, and watching them slowly intertwine, grow, break, and heal together felt incredibly raw and real.
The combination of war, tragedy, love, and resilience created such a powerful atmosphere. The character development was exceptional—they evolved in such a believable, painful, and beautiful way that I found myself deeply invested in their fate.
This book isn’t just good—it’s one of the best I’ve read this year. Emotional, intense, unforgettable. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. - Kristine ENot for the faint of heartOkay. I've got some major thoughts on this - so, if you're game....here we go.
First of all, I almost didn't even read this book. The first time I actually heard about this book was that it was a Harry Potter fanfic where Draco r@pes Hermione. Seriously? First of all, HP was a long time ago for me and second of all....why? So, it was a no for me.
Then, all of a sudden, I started hearing a lot of buzz around the book. That it was getting traditionally published. The name was changing from Manacled (the name of the fanfic) to Alchemised and surprisingly, the reviews were not bad. And then there were A LOT of good reviews. So, I was perplexed. What to do????
First of all - it is probably not a good idea to start a book that is over 1000 pages in the middle of the very busy Christmas season (My bad - but that is neither here nor there.)
Okay, honestly, my thoughts in the beginning were all over the place. Truly, and of course, this is just my opinion, but the book did itself a HUGE disservice the way it is formatted in terms of time periods. The book starts in the "present" timeline for Part One and we spend quite a bit of time there. THEN we move to Part 2 - which takes us back in time to actually explain HOW we got to where we are now.
I started this and had ABSOLUTELY no clue what the heck was going on. It was confusing, and the world building was non existent. It felt like I was dropped into the middle of a story that had started ahead of me. THIS is where I think having the knowledge that there was an entire world that had been already built (the Harry Potter universe) actually came in handy for me. Granted, as I mentioned before, HP was a long time ago for me, but I remembered the basics and I felt like I could kind of catch my breath by inserting the HP world in my head. Things like where our FMC was being held - understanding that it was Hogwarts when it was called Headquarters, actually helped me to get some kind of grip on things (there are statements about decorations being taken off and wall art missing). But still. It was a huge mess in my head and the characters did not do much to help me feel invested.
The MMC - Kaine Ferron - was just awful. Completely awful without giving us a background on the "why" behind his behavior. And then don't get me started on the whole alchemy stuff. And resonance? And there was a war, but now there were regenerated bodies everywhere??? I was lost.
Where the story actually gained its footing was during Part two - which was 4 1/2 years in the past. It is where we actually follow along and discover the events that happened prior to the time period that we were dumped in to. I think it was probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through Part Two when I stopped reading/listening, and went back and actually reread the entire section of Part One. Because NOW I could now understand and see the WHY behind the actions and reactions that had taken place in the beginning. Now I had some context - particularly regarding one particular character.
The sad thing is that I almost never gave this book that chance. The beginning was so disjointed and so confusing, not to mention extremely graphic with some really terrible events that I seriously thought about DNF'ing. A LOT. Like many, many times. But I decided to keep going just a bit longer. In the end, I am so glad that I did.
I read this really long review about how this book was garbage and that the entire book romanticized r@pe. That one review almost stopped me from reading it. In the end though, my opinion of this book went through a kaleidoscope of emotions that at any given time in the book differed depending on WHERE I was in the book. Did a r@pe occur? Yes. Was it awful? Yes. It isn't until you get to Part Two of the book that you realize that that those events were awful for both parties. I'm not justifying anything, I'm just explaining my feelings. The sad thing is that these events were not even the worst things in this book. Not even close.
This book is dark. The author warns us in the very beginning. It is not a book to go into lightly. BUT, it is a journey that is compelling, and at time excruciating. We meet the two main characters - Helena Marino and Kaine Ferron -who are on opposite sides in a war. They meet knowing that they are both using each other. They both KNOW that they do not have a future. But as in life, things never really go as planned.
The last things that I'll say is that by the end of the book, I WAS invested. Invested in the book, in the characters, and in whether or not there was any possible future for them? How they could possibly come back from the events that brought them to that point?
Apparently, this is a debut novel. If so, that is impressive. Could it have been shorter? Yep. Probably quite a bit shorter. But, with that being said, in the end I could not put the book down. I alternated between reading and listening and I had to make myself stop reading to actually switch to audio to go and do real life things (remember, busy Christmas season....).
The audio was performed by Saskia Maarleveld who consistently does a great job with narration.
My advice, if you choose to start this book is to make it past Part One. In my opinion, the book would have made much better sense if it had been formatted that way (Switching Part Two and making it Part One) and the pacing would have done a better job of building upon itself, but what do I know? But I will say this.....the fact that I finished a 1000+ page book in a day and a half says something.