Synopsis (from goodreads.com):
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…
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…
Jillian’s Review:
I really enjoyed this intelligently written novel. It has a great, strong main character, and dark, powerful, skilled guy with an interesting romance between the two. It was a bit odd to have such a huge age gap between the two, but Yelena seemed older than her age (which is typical of YA novels, I’ve noticed).
I was able to guess at some things, but not everything. It’s always nice to have a few unexpected twists and turns. There was enough happening that I had a few sleepless nights reading, and it was so worth it!
There was a bunch of swearing that felt out of place. I don’t understand why fantasy writers use American cuss words in a made-up world. If there really needs to be swearing, make some words up, but don’t use them ALL THE TIME. This novel was a bit too graphic for what I think teens should be reading, hence the four stars instead of five. Still, I'm looking forward to the next in this trilogy.
3 comments:
You're so good at writing. Great review. You are great at making me want to read what you read.
Looks interesting. There goes another onto the TBR pile.
Thank you so much, Jennifer! You made my day by your comment.
Let me know what you think of it. Just keep in mind the second and third books in the trilogy weren't as good as the first. So sad when that happens.
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