Quiet plants might perk up around me, but they didn’t uproot themselves or destroy a fence to get close to me. Brisels soon discovers a hidden altar to a dark goddess, a lineage of witches stretching back to ancient times, and a hidden garden overgrown with the most deadly poisonous plants on earth. She's desperate, rude, sarcastic, unhinged, and sneers and grins like a bad high school movie alpha bitch.

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. Because other people are interested in the garden and some of them are benign but some of them not so. When her aunt dies and leaves Bri a dilapidated estate in Rhinebeck, rural New York, it seems like the perfect chance to make a new start and test the extent of her powers in secret. Besides this, the unique magical world steeped in the Greek mythology of Medea was fascinating and helped build a compelling climax. Bri really is a powerful character that I think many readers will come to resonate with, whether they be Black or LGBTQ+.But when she finds another door containing a witch's altar, suddenly and with no explanation whatsoever, she yells for her mums to come and check it out with her, when previously she had been keeping her activities a secret from them, because anything hinting at danger could make them move back to New York, and Bri won't be able to solve the mystery of herself and her heritage. Bri’s inherited house, with its massive grounds and apothecary, is in quaint, curious, countrified Rhinebeck. It's a strange affinity she cannot even begin to understand, having never known her biological parents. Main characters are assumed White; same-sex marriages and gender equality at the warfront appear to be the norm in this world. I’d read the same article and had even done an entire paper on the process for my environmental studies class.

She eventually finds one and in a private meeting the bank manager tells her that there was no will leaving Briseis the estate, and in fact the paperwork she has with her is invalid because it went missing. It felt like a conservative situation where they're "oppressed" because they're forced to wear masks. Itried to convince Mom and Mo that running laps and playing badminton was a form of torture, but I still had to dress out and be within smelling distance of dudes who thought wearing deodorant was optional. Nothing really happened in this book, and because nothing really happened, there were no nailbiting, edge of your seat, spine-shivering, scenes.

Their love for Briseis was remarkably heart-warming and wholesome, plus their banter and interactions made me laugh several times.

A verdant read as rich as the greenery within it, This Poison Heart will wrap its vines around you and never let go. p., because this book does with Greek mythology what that book did with Arthurian legends: strong Black heroine, magical heritage, Gothic elements, and family secrets. The single features Hanoi Rocks members Andy McCoy (on guitar) and Michael Monroe (on backing vocals and as co-producer). One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman that Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and the surrounding community. Grief and sadness made them shrivel; happiness made them perk up; and fear and anger made them lash out.Everywhere I went, if there was something green and growing, it was like an alarm went off, alerting it to my presence. If anybody had been paying close enough attention, they would have seen that every school I’d ever attended had a similar “contamination. The fun mix of retellings coming together and all of the greek mythology and the queer rep omfg omfg OMFGGGG this book is a DREAM! For her, being in a place as green as the park with all its open fields and trees and wildflowers was too much of a temptation, or maybe a threat. i feel like the author was trying to put too many black culture things in the book to make it and bri seem more relatable but it got really annoying at certain points because sometimes characters would say black phrases that didn’t fit into the conversation and it felt like the author was forcing it.

Ialways wondered why the plants preferred me to the sunlight when it was in a plant’s nature to reach for it. She also tells her that it was she and Karter who orchestrated the attacks in the theatre and graveyard, and that she knows about Marie. Welcome back to the final day of our book club read-along for OwlCrate's July book, This Poison Heart! The mystery around Briseis’ powers was so captivating, and I didn’t expect how mythology would eventually lead to answers to those questions.But the rambling, overgrown grounds of the house, the neglected apothecary and the locked garden with its poisonous plants, hold many secrets - and maybe also answers to Bri's questions about her birth family, her past, her powers and their purpose. There really is something about reading this that feels akin to being enclosed within a walled garden.