All Ning wanted was to save her sister’s life. Being the daughter of a physician and a woman who can heal through the power of magical teas, this shouldn’t’ve been too hard a task. She tries everything, every remedy she can scrounge up from her brain and her parents’ supplies. When these fail, Ning decides that the only hope is to travel to the imperial city, join a competition for other magical tea brewers, and hope that the imperial family has something that can heal her sister. Judy I. Lin doesn’t make anything easy for her protagonist in A Magic Steeped in Poison.
Ning is the kind of person who can’t avoid trouble, it seems. Even before she arrives in Nánjiāng, Ning is tangling with masked warrior. There are intrigues galore inside the imperial palace and it’s only thanks to her quick wits and ability to make very loyal friends that Ning is able to stay out of danger long enough to compete. The place is a viper’s nest of schemers, social climbers, and assassins. Ning’s knack for blundering into other people’s dastardly plots and her status as an outsider from the provinces soon has the princess looking to recruit Ning into her own schemes to hold onto power after the death of her father, the emperor.
Fantasy fans who love political intrigue will enjoy this first book in the Book of Tea series. What really hooked me was Lin’s incredible world building. Lin writes in the afterword that she was inspired by traditional Chinese medicine. Lin cranks things up a notch with Ning’s teas, which grant her superhuman abilities or allow her access to a supernatural realm inhabited by gods and demons. I also really enjoyed the sense of Ning’s world opening up as she travels from her small village to the center of the empire; I love a lived-in fantasy world that makes you feel like, if you step away from the action and head down a side street, you’ll find people bustling about their daily lives.
What surprised me most about A Magic Steeped in Poison—apart from the very original magic in this world—is that the story resisted the usual arcs. I don’t want to say too much about this because it will absolutely ruin the book. Instead, I have to sign off by simply saying that if you’re hooked by the characters and the world Lin created, the ending of this book will send you running to the next book in the series so that you can find out what happens next.