Amazon Editorial Review:

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 Dusté 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—.


My Opinion:
Oh, I enjoyed this book from the first minute. It already began with the really nice and classy cover. That always makes a good impression :).
I liked to meet a somewhat different heroine here (at least from some prototypical fantasynovels I know). She has quite the troubled past that she has to get over and is torn in a world, where wrong and right are quite difficult to distinguish - if at all. I loved the fact that there are so many "grey" characters in the book, noone is really good and few are really bad. That made the setting quite realistic.

The book will travel as the 1st ring in the English-Fantasy-Miniabo.
2nd: Magic Study, 3rd: Fire Study

- Since it's going to be an "abo", it would be good if each book would be read in a month (at the most). But even though they look somewhat bigger, it doesn't really take long. If for some reason you need longer, please write a short journal or pm, so I know it's allright.
- Please don't just write that the book arrived an traveled on but also note how you liked it. :)

Otherwise: Have Fun!


Way to travel:

1. moonysshadow
2. rotewoelfin
3. KillerPueppi
4. Lytante
5. sonnenscheinHD
6. sternenwolf
7. quak

8. Qantaqa
9. faerie-glen
10. Wibke
11. ?


Khirsah wollte vorher ausgelassen werden - viell. also nochma versuchen...


...und dann heim! :)

The book arrived today, thanks, Sao-Diego12548!
I'll read it soon, and tell you what I thought.

I finished the book in about 3 days, and all in all, I liked it.

Snyder really shines in her ability to tell a plot-twisting tale that engages her reader, and although some of the plot points were rather see-through, many of them took me completely by surprise.
However, I was disappointed in her characterization and dialogue, both of which lacked polish. Whenever the narrator told us something about a character, it never quite synced with the actual portrayal in the book, and especially Valek wasn't fleshed-out enough for my liking.
The book was a perfect companion for my hungover Sunday - not overly complicated and fun to read.
I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series and following Yelena in her adventures.

It's off to the next reader as soon as I receive an addresse.

Picked it up today - and I already like the cover - so maybe it will climb up my MTBR faster than expected ;)

I finished the book last night :) I liked reading it, although I have nearly the same critic points as moonyshadow. In my case it took some time to get to like Yelena. But, the further the story expanded, the more I was thrilled to turn the pages to get to know what happens next. At some points the development of friendship or other turns in the story were to easy for me. But all together I really liked the story and I'm looking forward to the second part :)

Going to ship the book as soon as I get the next address :)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

After all the PM problems I finally got the address :) Starting its travel in a few minutes with our internal post man :)

The book arrived well :)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

und weiter geht's...

Vorhin aus der Packstation geholt - danke fürs Verringen und Verschicken!

10.08.09
Phu, I made the one month limit. Actually I read the book(s) very quickly, during three days (had a free day). So you can see I enjoyed them quite a bit. Thanks for the ring ... looking forward to book number 3.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Heute zur Post gebracht.

Gerade habe ich die beiden Bände aus der Post geholt, danke!!! Bin schon gespannt darauf wie mir diese beiden Bücher gefallen.

Update: Ich kann jetzt nicht mal sagen, ob mir der erste Band genauso gut gefallen hätte, wenn ich den zweiten nicht versehentlich vorher schon gelesen hätte. Auf jeden Fall hat es nicht gestört, fast wie im Film "Kill Bill" hatte die Retrospektive ihren Reiz ;-)

Gut geschrieben, interessante Figuren und gerade genug Exotik um mich am Bändel zu halten, aber nicht zu absurd - das hat mir soviel Spass gemacht, dass ich gerne noch Fire study lesen würde.

Ich habe kirsah angefragt, da quak noch bis Mitte September in Urlaub ist..
.... update: kirsah möchte übersprungen werden, also frage ich an der nächsten Stelle an....

Die Bände reisen nun weiter zu sternenwolf!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Gute Reise und viel Spass beim lesen! Immer dran denken, Poison study ist der erste Band *gggg*

Arrived today! Thanks for sending @ sonnenscheinHD!
I'm going to read it as soon as possible and really looking forward to it!

I finished the book yesterday and really liked it. It's a funny and interesstig read. Though I've got some critics: Some of the turns in the story were very obivious and some in my opinion a little bit to fast, but there were enough that took me by surprise. And some of the characters were lacking intensity and depth.
But nonetheless I enjoyed the book well and looking forward to the prequel, which I'm going to start today.

Edit 08.09.: On its way to quak!

Arrived today and I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks!

2009-10-21: I loved this book and read it within less than a week. I enjoyed the setting of Ixia which is quite different from typical fantasy worlds. The characters are lovely and it's also different to have a "criminal" as the main character. Although the story did not bring any real surprises, I loved the book. The writing style is fluent and it was fun to read this book.
I already started to read volume 2 :)

2009-11-16: Qantaqa möchte übersprungen werden. Also frage ich die nächste Adresse an.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Auf dem Weg zur nächsten Station.

I liked the setting and most of the characters, but the writing style is acceptable at best and horrible in places.

Arrived here, safe and sound (a bit battered perhaps from its travels). The cover is indeed classy - looking forward to reading the book!

Thanks for the ring!

An entertaining read, to be sure, did not take long at all.
I agree that some character and plot developments happened a bit fast to my liking, and it is certainly neither high literature nor the re-invention of the wheel, but the book was very readable, with enough story twists (most rather foreseeable, though) to keep the reader interested, and it did not resort to as many fantasy clichés as most other fantasy books do.
All in all, a charming book.

Again, thanks to Sao-Diego!

Edit: Passed on to Annieselan!

Arrived today together with "Magic Study" and I already started to read!

I had a bad night yesterday, because my younger child was always vomitting so I couldn´t sleep a lot. That´s where "Poison Study"
came in handy - I spent the sleepless hours reading it and I must admit, I was hooked by this book. Okay, it is no re-invetion of the wheel, like Wibke already said and Yelena was a bit too perfect for my liking, but I liked the Ixia-setting which wasn´t a stereotype fantasy-world and the characters were also very likeable. The love-story was sweet and the plot interesting. I will start with volume II today and I´m looking forward to read it!

Thank you for letting me join this wonderful ring, Sao-Diego12548! I really enjoyed reading this book. It will travel together with volume II, as soon as I´m ready.