This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
A Review By: RS
Bloomsbury presents This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, read by Jordan Cobb.
Darkness blooms in best-selling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.
Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.
When Briseis’ aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined - it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri’s unique family lineage.
When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman whom Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it...until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.
From the best-selling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.
Review Notes:
Audio Book Publication Year: 2021
An installment in a Series? Yes
Narrator (s): Jordan Cobb
Bri embarks on a journey of self discovery and her family tree. A journey that is both enlightening and fatal.
It took a minute for this book to get going, but once it did, I was in for a wild ride. I really enjoyed the tie into Greek mythology, as Briseis learns of her biological ancestry. This is a young adult book and reads as such. Bri is 17 and faces many of the ups and downs of your typical teenager. My teenager and I enjoyed this book as a whole and are jumping into the second book to see how this intriguing tale ends.
Other than the slow start, I really can't say anything bad about this book.
Reading Recommendation? Yes!
Rating: 4 (It’s lit!)
Content Warnings? Human or animal loss, Physical abuse/violence
