I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron Series: The Poison Heart #1
Published by Bloomsbury YA on June 29, 2021
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 384
Format: E-Arc
Source: Netgalley
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Darkness blooms in bestselling 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's 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 who 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 bestselling 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.
After reading Cinderella is Dead I was super exciting to see what This Poison Heart had in store for me. I was interested to see how dark the story would go and if I could see which myth and tales the story was based on.
I was worried that my enjoyment and enthusiasm for Cinderella is Dead would lessen my opinion of this book. So I did take my time picking this up. And while I felt that the This Poison Heart did start slow, by the end it was a runaway train that just stopped in time.
I really enjoyed getting to know Briseis and her plant powers and watching her grow throughout the book. I enjoyed seeing her relationships with her parents and the plants. And just watching her bloom. I also loved her finding out about the family history and the secrets of the house she inherits.
In the end this was an enchanting read that blended plant magic with Greek Mythology and prehaps The Secret Garden. So much so that I couldn’t tell when one part ended and the other end started. I didn’t expect so much mythology to be involved but it made the book so much more delicious.
I was invested in the ending. Not only in Briseis but also her family, both adopted and biological, the community (I need to know more!) and get the plant knowledge, that I was sad when the book came to a very sudden and unexpected end. Let me tell you the ending is a huge cliff hanger. So waiting for the next book will be hard. But I cannot wait!
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