"Dazzling contemporary YA fantasy brimming with botanical magic, mythic magic and Black Girl Magic"
What a blooming brilliant concept - an adopted Brooklyn teenager with an uncanny gift for giving life to plants inherits an old mansion from her birth family and becomes embroiled in an ancient ancestral curse. The book’s botanical and mythic insights are endlessly fascinating and interwoven with green-fingered dexterity, and the plot is 100% page-turning as it conjures a fast-blossoming story that twists with the grip of snaking vines.
Bri’s inherited house, with its massive grounds and apothecary, is in quaint, curious, countrified Rhinebeck. On arrival, she follows a trail of clues left by her aunt Circe and discovers a deadly Poison Garden. Then she reads a letter from Circe declaring that “fate has a way of catching up to us.
You must decide if you can continue this work, because you are the only one that can.” Turns out it’s no coincidence that Bri’s full name (Briseis) and those of her birth mom and aunt (Selene and Circe) are powerful women from Greek myth.
Alongside the uncoiling magical mystery, I adored the loving banter between Bri’s moms, and the intrigue of her friendship with local boy Karter. Then there’s super stunning, super rich Marie, a girl with mysteries of her own and a driver called Nyx - a name that might also set bells a-ringing.
This Poison Heart is contemporary YA fantasy at its finest and confirms Kalynn Bayron’s talent for coming up with killer concepts and spinning new gold from timeless old tales (I also adored Cinderella is Dead). What’s more, the epic ending leaves scope for a sequel - I truly hope that’s the case.
Ever since she can remember, Briseis has had power over plants. Flowers bloom in her footsteps and leaves turn to face her as though she were the sun. It's a power she and her adoptive mothers have spent her whole life trying to hide.
| Reading age: | 12+ |
| Primary Genre | Young Adult Fiction |
| Other Genres: |
Ever since she can remember, Briseis has had power over plants. Flowers bloom in her footsteps and leaves turn to face her as though she were the sun.
This Poison Heart is aimed at readers aged 12 and over.
This Poison Heart features in the following genres: Young Adult Fiction, Children’s / Teenage fiction: Fantasy romance, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Children’s / Teenage fiction: Fantasy
Paperback. £8.99, down from the £9.99 cover price. In Stock.
This Poison Heart was written by Kalynn Bayron and published by Bloomsbury YA an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
This Poison Heart has 373 pages
Yes it is part of This Poison Heart series
£8.99, reduced from £9.99. In Stock.
