Poison Study (2005)

A young woman haunted by a ghost she created and plagued by the terrors of her past, yearns for a freedom she will never have. She must play a poisonous game of spies and magicians; in which trust can be earned and lost in mere moments, loyalties can be forged and burned down, and love can perhaps be something more than just a dream.

This book has elements you've seen before arranged in such a way to submerge you before you even realize it. Truly a page turner. ( )

Everything about this book pleased me. Fantasy? Check. Strong female character? Check. Interesting setting? Check. I had to stop myself from skipping paragraphs to see what happened next. I'll be tracking down the sequel shortly. ( )

I was seriously sick of this by the time it ended.

I went into this expecting a book about magic, poisons, mainly poisons, some romance, some plot, something about her experiences past, and maybe the slightest bit of continuity.

What I got was: ///////////////

You might not get it. See those jagged lines up there. That's what this book was. A roller coaster. One that has no idea when to go up or down. Something that was seriously a bumpy ride in the road.

Maybe I'm being a bit over dramatic. But the best way to describe this plot would be a jagged line, a bumpy road. Most books are smooth roads, with no time skips from paragraph to paragraph, no sudden revelations that have no emotional meaning, scenes done without finesse (I mean someone died, and that was the most anticlimatic scene in the book(it might not have been, given that most of this book was meh).

The first third of this book was absolutely dreadfully boring. After that, it became a bit interesting, which is why I decided to keep going with this. Around 50% into the book is where it really starts, and picks up pace.

A thing which seriously bothered me was, why doesn't she get her period? Or is that not what it's like in this fantasy world. If so, where can I get a ticket? Or not, since I have no wish of ever going into this fantasy world.

Now, spoilers: One thing I didn't get, was the commander portrayed as trans? I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm just genuinely confused as to whether that was the case because I didn't really understand that part?

I seriously hated the time skips in this one. Also, in the beginning Valek moved really fast with her training, too fast I think for a food-taster. I'm pretty sure you need to have a good sense of taste and smell to be a food taster, but here they pick people at random? Also, does it really take only a week or two to train food-tasters? Seriously!?!? Actually it might have been longer than a week or two, but like I said, there were time-skips which really confused me.

I'm just seriously bored with this book, and will most likely not be continuing this series ever in the future. ( )

I really enjoyed the start of this series! ( )

Enjoyable fantasy picked up in charity shop. ( )