BOOKS | Review: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Name: Poison Study (Poison Study series #1, The Chronicles of Ixia series #1)

Author: Maria V. Snyder

Publisher: Mira Books

Date published: September 2007

Genre: Fiction, adult, fantasy, romance, adventure

Rating: 4/5

Choose:

A quick death

Or slow poison...

Yelena has a choice – be executed for murder, or become food taster to the Commander of Ixia. She leaps at the chance for survival, but her relief may be short-lived.

Life in the palace is full of hazards and secrets. Wily and smart, Yelena must learn to identify poisons before they kill her, recognise whom she can trust and how to spy on those she can’t. And who is the mysterious Southern sorceress who can reach into her head?

When Yelena realises she has extraordinary powers of her own, she faces a whole new problem, for using magic in Ixia is punishable by death...

- From Goodreads.

Poison Study was an incredibly exciting and intense adventure with plenty of different plot threads weaving together that kept me turning the pages, invested in finding out what would happen next.

I thought the world was built well, the country it was set in, its history and politics all felt real and interesting to unravel and come to understand over the course of the story. I enjoyed the descriptions of the settings and felt they added to the mood and atmosphere of the story well.

My favourite part of the story was definitely the characters. Yelena was a great main character to follow as I loved seeing her grow and learn throughout the novel, and I thought her conflict and pain over her past and her struggles to feel strong despite that were very endearing. I also really enjoyed her dynamic and interactions with Valek, who was a very intriguing character, and I always looked forward to seeing him in a scene and seeing what he would do.

The side characters in the story were also well written, all of them engaging, whether they were likeable or hateful, they definitely added to the story and gave it plenty of depth.

One of the things that did take me out of the flow of the story once or twice was the writing of the action scenes, which I did not always find easy to follow or to picture in my mind, but this did not lessen my enjoyment too much and I am hopeful it could improve in the other books in the series, which I absolutely plan on reading.

Another thing I should mention is that this book does deal with some more serious topics, such as abuse and sexual assault. In general I felt this was dealt with carefully, but there were a couple of small scenes I felt unsure about and that were certainly not easy to read, so if that is something that could upset you, I would be cautious when reading this book.

Overall it was a really great book that was very quick to read as I was enjoying my time with it and was very invested with finding out how it would end. I became quite attached to the characters I liked and will certainly be reading on in the series to find out what happens to them all. I recommend this if you like the politics and danger of books like The Cruel Prince and the world building of something like Shadow and Bone.