This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron is a captivating young adult fantasy novel that emphasizes the importance of being true to yourself and fully embracing your power and your destiny.
Briseis has an incredible talent: she can turn seeds into mature plants just by touching them alone.
When Briseis’s aunt dies, she bequeaths a large and neglected estate in rural New York to Briseis. This inheritance came at the right time for Briseis and her parents so they decided to leave Brooklyn and spend the summer at the estate. Briseis knows that she’ll be surrounded by a lot of plants and flowers at her new home and she hopes that she will learn how to control her unusual gift while she is there. Unfortunately, her new home is menacing in every sense of the word because it comes with bizarre instructions, a well-established apothecary and a hidden garden that contains some of the deadliest plants in the world and no one except Briseis or her blood relatives can enter it.
When strangers begin to turn up at the house, asking for various herbs and potions, Briseis realizes that she has a natural ability for creating these special products. Marie is one of the first visitors to show up on Briseis’s doorstep—she is a gorgeous and enigmatic young woman and Briseis is happy to befriend her. But Briseis finds out that Marie is keeping a ton of dark secrets about her family’s unique history, the house and her strange connection to the surrounding community. Briseis knew that her inheritance was too good to be true and she wants to get to the bottom of all the secrets that go hand in hand with the estate… until a malicious group comes after her because they believe she can make a precious and hazardous immortality potion.
Will Briseis be able to accept her duty as the guardian of an ancient power that lies in the middle of the Poison Garden? Can she harness her gift and keep her family safe?
Pros And My Favourite Parts
Kalynn Bayron deserves the highest of fives for creating an enthralling story that portrays black girl magic, powerful ancestors, deadly plants and long-standing family secrets. I’m a huge fan of Greek Mythology and I love the fact that some of the characters were named after my favorite Greek goddesses and priestesses. This story was told from Briseis’s point of view and I really felt as though I was seeing and experiencing the small town, the eccentric residents, the huge house and the overgrown garden of poisonous plants first-hand. Plus, my sapphic heart jumped for joy when Briseis decided to let go of her doubts and fears so that she could truly embrace her awesome powers and just be herself.
Cons And Heads Up
As much as I enjoyed this story, I still felt as though the ending was a bit rushed because a lot of important issues came up in the last chapter and I was left with more questions than answers. In addition, there was a scene that contained a graphic description of a hostage situation and a murder and this scene could be a trigger for some readers.
The Conclusion
I’m not ashamed to admit that I was counting down the days until I could devour every word of this fascinating novel. You can trust me when I say that it was definitely worth the wait because this story had the right amount of humor, angst, magical moments and foreshadowing of dangerous situations. After reading this story, Kalynn Bayron has become one of my new favorite authors and I can’t wait to see what she does next!
Excerpt from This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
“You’re related to Circe.” She was suddenly at the base of the ladder holding it steady with one hand. “I can see that by looking at you. Do you mind if I ask how?”
“Her sister, Selene, was my birth mother.”
She made a noise like a cough, but when I looked, she stood stoic, thoughtful. I climbed down and set the jar on the counter as she walked to the opposite side.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Of course.”
Again, something about her struck me. She was pretty—no. More than that. She was beautiful. But it wasn’t just that. I shook my head. “Uh, sorry—I lost my train of thought.”
She shrugged. “It happens.”
I scrambled to think of what I’d meant to ask her. “There are stores—you know, online—that sell most of this stuff.”
“I don’t want to buy it online, and nobody else does either.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t know the people selling it,” she said flatly. “I have no idea what they intended when they cultivated the plants.”
“Is that important? The intent of the person handling them?”
“More than anything.” She glanced at the wall of glass jars, then set her hands on the counter, leaning in. “I read a study once. It said that if you have a plant and talk to it like you love it, it’ll grow faster, bigger. But if you keep a plant and talk down to it, insult it, it will wither and die.”
“That’s true,” I said. I’d read the same article and had even done an entire paper on the process for my environmental studies class. “So maybe there’s something to it, to what you think and feel when you grow a plant.”
She nodded. “I think so. I imagine plants are kind of like people. Tell a person they’re worthless, hurt their feelings everyday—they’d wither, too.” She let her delicate fingers dance over the surface of the counter, then up to her lips. Her eyes were like the centers of Velvet Queen sunflowers, brown and blazing. She held my gaze. “But imagine telling someone they’re beautiful, magnetic, stunning. Every single day. Imagine how they’d flourish.”
I knocked over the jar of comfrey as I shuffled papers, trying to avoid her stare.
Marie straightened, a smirk on her lips. “Anyway, the plants and herbs here are just better. They stay fresh longer. They don’t rot in their containers. Why do you think that is?”
“I—I don’t know,” I lied. I was beginning to get some idea.
“You’re new to this place, but it isn’t new to you,” Marie said. “It’s in your bones. It’s part of who you are.”
I couldn’t look straight at her because I didn’t know where my gaze would land—her wide eyes? The full curve of her bottom lip? “How do you know that it’s in my bones?”
“I know a lot of things,” she said. “For example, there are paper bags under the counter. And there should be a scoop and scale under there, too.”
I looked down. She was right.
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Series
This Poison Heart Series
This Poison Heart: book 1
Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 9781547603916
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
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