Hello everyone!
I've had some extra free time this week so I've been doing a lot of reading on the sidelines even though I still do try and do everything else that needs doing, and as a matter of fact I'm MUCH better this week at being caught up with everything!
Reading gives me power!
But there's also been A LOT of it going on. For real.
For some inexplicable reason I've been on a romance binge, even though about half of the books I read pissed me off to no end. Whether that was because the storyline was just convulted, or because the characters were absolutely extra stupid, who knows? But the books I did end up reading and liking were definitely enough to get me going on an additional romance binge, so I think I'll have to cut it short at some point with something else.
Maybe Agatha Christie.
Until then though, let's talk about Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study.
These books first crossed my radar when I saw them in a vlogger's video, but I made a conscious decision after looking at the first one that I wouldn't read them. Why? No idea. At the time, they just didn't seem right.
After a while though I change my mind and I picked up the first in the series, although let me tell you, I've been reading forward and I'm not as happy about the rest as I was with number one. One is just amazing, that's all.
So, the story!
Our main character, Yelena, is in prison waiting to be hanged because she killed a very impotant person. She's waiting to be hanged when the Commander's Captain, Valek, takes her out of prison to train her as a food taster, meaning she will probably die of poison of some sort (not to mention he tricks her into thinking that she's drugged and needs him for the cure) unless she gets really, really good. So the first half of the book is learning all about Ixia, the realm she's in, about her as a character, about Valek, the Commander, Ambrose and Janco, and a host of others who inhabit her world. It's only as the book turns towards its second half that we learn about Sitia, the southern kingdom, which is renowned for magic, and always at odds with Ixia.
Also at this point, we have learned that Valek likes to carve and that he's basically a ninja, and that the Commander has been eating a sweet called Criollo and acting funny. This means the gang has to investigate, because there's a delegation on it's way from the south to try and bridge the gaps between the two realms. We also learn Yelena's backstory about being trained as a magician by a rouge who wants to control the kingdom, and how she killed because she was abused, in all ways, and was afraid another girl would follow in her footsteps.
She has to go back to where it all began though, for her, which is where she and Valek get trapped while tryng to save the Commander, but of course the cavalry with Ari and Janco, and a magician Irys saves the day (but not before they admit they love each other and swoon). Yelena also manages to free the Commander, who turns out to be a woman in disguise, but as she is still under this hanging threat, she has to leave for the south, where she might even find her actual family. Valek, however, promises they'll find a way to be together.
I realize a lot of this sounds superficial and not exactly the stuff of legends, but I'm telling you, the book is worth reading and it's so much better than my poor attemt at recapping it. So go read it and then let me know what you think!
Because Valek and Yelena <3
xx
*image not mine
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