THIS POISON HEART - Kalynn Bayron

4 stars

Fantastic setup for a series!! Wish the first half had been less boring. Poisons, mythology, secrets, creaky old mansions, and more—OH MY.

Concept: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★
Pacing: ★★
Last third of the book: ★★★★★

Briseis has a strange skill. A gift, maybe. Some might call it a curse. Growing up adopted in Brooklyn, Briseis and her two moms discover that she can grow any plant. She can rebirth a plant from its withered ashes. The plants also want to... be close to Briseis. In fact, whenever a plant is near her it literally moves to be closer.

As you can imagine, this is a problem in the nonmagical world of our current times, and especially in the concrete jungle of New York City where every plant is noticeable.

One day, Briseis and her moms receive a strange visitor claiming to be a solicitor from the small rural New York community of Rhinebeck. Briseis' birth mother, Selene, and Selene's sister, Circe, lived in an old mansion in the community and both have died recently. Briseis is the sole inheritor.

So her family moves to Rhinebeck.

Now surrounded by the ghosts of her birth family, a gothic mansion filled with secrets, and a mysterious garden on the property with a locked gate, Briseis is about to discover the true meaning of her abilities and just what, exactly, they're meant for.

Cue the dramatic, suspenseful music!

I thought This Poison Heart was awesome. Well, for for the first half, not so much. I was bored silly. In order to give this large plot its proper setup—and to get Briseis from Brooklyn to Rhinebeck and more—we had to take a lot of time to build up the suspense and get to know all the players involved. While this totally makes sense, it made for an extremely boring opening read and made me slip into the assumption that this novel was going to be just like other YA traditional novels.

It is NOT like your run-of-the-mill adventure. You just have to get past that part to realize it.

Once the plot kicks off, this was awesome. I couldn't stop reading it, and I loved what the author brought into play for the next book. This series (duology? more?) is going to play with a lot of myths, magics, and more—and I can't WAIT!