A way better Kindle First pick than my previous choice, The Last Girl, I may be overrating this one slightly just because I was so thrilled to be reading something that was actually worthwhile. 
 The Queen's Poisoner was definitely a good start to what appears to be a trilogy in the making. I am not familiar with any other works by Jeff Wheeler, but I liked the premise and the fact that the MC was an eight-year-old kid, who is clever at playing with tiles and building patterns, but cowardly and emotional in the manner that eight-year-old kids are. 
 Owen cries. A lot. It was somewhat annoying, but I appreciated it because he matures throughout the course of the book. From barely being able to speak to adult strangers, to standing up for himself against the 14-year-old bully, Owen definitely develops a backbone and learns how to draw upon his own courage. And though he is not the titular character, he is, apparently, the MC for further installments (though he will be aged up . . . thankfully). 
 In addition to the political intrigue, wherein the current King is rumored to have killed his nephews in order to secure himself the throne, to how religion and magic, or the Fountain blessed, play within the political realm, I found the setup to be intriguing, but we ultimately do not get so many details about how the Fountain blessed work or what the abilities do. 
 Finally, the cast of characters was superb. We have Elysabeth Victoria Mortimer, the vivacious and talkative eight-year-old playmate and granddaughter of one of the Northern lords, who immediately latches onto Owen, to his initial annoyance, but quickly becomes a fast friend and confidante. The King, who is supposedly evil, becomes a complex character who steps into the role rumors have created for him, rather than rebut them. We have the various spies, such as the ever-amusing Mancini and the villainous Ratcliffe (has there ever been a good Ratcliffe?). 
 One issue I did have is that some of the details and crucial information to the plot is revealed in a rather awkward manner, with characters telling you outright and long narratives about history. Then there were also Mancini's journal entries, sandwiched in between chapters. I have a longstanding issue with extraneous excerpts placed between chapters - oftentimes, Mancini's entries would reveal plot points that hadn't happened, which irked me because Mancini's tone, while amusing, is not really conducive to suspense. I dislike the use of such formatting unless it adds to the story or supplements the information already given. 
 All in all, this was a great read, and I am looking forward to the later installments.