Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (Book Review)

Goodreads summary:
Choose: A quick death... Or slow poison...

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace - and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust - and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear.

                                                  My rating - 4.5

My review:
This was an amazing start to the popular trilogy Study Trilogy by Maria V. Snyder. Poison Study is a must-reads for fans of fantasies set in a well-developed world.


It starts off with the protagonist, Yelena, in a dungeon getting ready to be executed for murder. She is offered the job as food-taster for the commander, which is a very dangerous profession and food tasters generally don't live that long. However, Yelena decides it's a risk she's willing to take and she accepts. At that moment we are introduced to Valek, the man who will be Yelena's teacher and show her all the different poisons.

Even though Yelena is a murderer, you can't help but fall in love with her character. There's just something about her that makes you realise she isn't a cold-blooded killer who deserves to die. Valek is also a very interesting character and reminds me of a young version of Gaius from the BBC TV show Merlin... Other characters I liked were Rand who was a cook, and Ari and Janco who were two soldiers that Yelena befriended and they helped her with various things throughout the book..

There's also a good line-up of bad guys...

Maria has created a really interesting world and it's obvious she put a lot of thought in to it. Her writing is simple but has a lot of depth.