Poison Study - Maria V. Snyder

[goodreads]

Title: Poison Study
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~10hrs / 409 pages
Date read: June 2012, August 2014, September 2016, July 2024

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 the 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.

I started listening to this with no particular expectations. I'd never read a review of it, but just kept seeing it all over the place, so I figured it was about time.

I ended up LOVING it!!! One of the best books I've read in a very, very long time. It's a brilliant story that incorporates several of my favourite bookish ideas: Teaching of a craft - check. Latent magical abilities - check. Surprising romance - check. Friends among enemies - check.

Excellent book that's nicely contained. Still, it was so well written that I want to start the sequel right away :)