Poison Study (Study, #1) in The Reader's Lounge

Oct 11, 2013 Pili rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Another series I had postponed reading and that I should have started long ago! Truth be told I am now in a fantasy reading binge since the end of last year, so it really was the right time for me to start this series.

In Poison Study we meet Yelena in prison, awaiting the day her death sentence will be executed, but she gets a rather unusual offer made to her instead. She'll learn to be the food taster of the Commander and if she wants to stay alive she'll have to stay put to get the antidote to Another series I had postponed reading and that I should have started long ago! Truth be told I am now in a fantasy reading binge since the end of last year, so it really was the right time for me to start this series.

In Poison Study we meet Yelena in prison, awaiting the day her death sentence will be executed, but she gets a rather unusual offer made to her instead. She'll learn to be the food taster of the Commander and if she wants to stay alive she'll have to stay put to get the antidote to the first venom she was given to identify. Valek will be her teacher, the one that will have her life on his hands and he's the Commander Advisor (and occasionally assassin).

Yelena is a very interesting character. She is not an innocent wrongly jailed, because she did kill a man, but the more we get to know her, the more we agree with her reasons for it. Ixia's law doesn't have any room for self defence, and killing someone is pusnished by death. She finds a way to save her life and grabs it with both hands, and she needs to be extremely strong to get through her training, the palace gossip and intrigues, the family of the man she killed since his father is a General of Ixia and dealing with Valek and his power over her life and death.

The world building in this book is phenomenal! We are given so much detail here and there about the society of Ixia, its goverment, leader and the most recent history. The Commander is a most interesting character, that seems both a reformer and a dictator and that you end up feeling a bit torn about whether to support him or dislike him. And we even get some really interesting revelations about it that truly surprised me. Unexpected & really well done diversity right there!

As fantasy it does have the middle ages/medieval feel to it, but Ixia is actually rather modernized after the take over by the Commander. There was a revolution and now there's a strong point on equality, from opportunities, to uniforms, to the equal application of the law to everyone. But there's also the choking control of movement for the citizens and probably a growing bureocracy to take care of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one reminded of a communist dictatorship.

The main characters were fantastic and I loved every interaction between Valek and Yelena! From rebelling against the man that has her life in his hands, to becoming teacher and apprentice, to becoming friends and allies and eventually... well, more! There's so much to them both and their pasts that what we see at first and we discover very much about them both together and apart.

Yelena is a great character, there's so much about her we don't know, that she even doesn't know! Raised as an orphan for charity and then suffering horribly, she has plenty of scars to heal. And she does that not only by making friends, trying to stay alive, but also trying to learn how to defend herself. She starts training with two soldiers and they become the brothers she never had. Ari and Janco added a support line for Yelena completely platonic and helped her get stronger and better, and they do have some wonderful humour added to the story, the banter between them and with Yelena was simply fantastic!

You might be wondering is there's any magic in this book, and yes there is, but magic is forbidden in Ixia, so that's an added complication! The plot is weaved between Yelena's survival and a threat to the government and the Commander himself and it's done in a very intricate way, one that we wouldn't have imagined at first!

The romance was quite unusual but I don't want to talk about why much, in case I end up spoiling something, but let's say I'm very happy to see how both of them can still attend to their duty and what they feel like they need to do, even if that means putting their relationship second for some time and not mean that they love each other any less!

Very much deserving of 4 to 4.5 stars and fantastic first book in a fantasy series that I'd recommend to any fantasy lover!

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