Book: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
Reviewed by Rallie X
Rating: 4.5/5
Happy Ｗｅｄｎｅｓｄａｙ my dudes ʰᵒᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃʰʰʰʰ! I put 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙋𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 (and its sequel, 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙒𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙁𝙖𝙩𝙚) by 𝗞𝗮𝗹𝘆𝗻𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝘆𝗿𝗼𝗻 on hold months ago and everything came in at the same time - ebook and audiobook for both books! So I had to take a weekend detour into an AU New York where magic is real, and being adopted might not be enough to escape a family legacy!
This book is cool as hell. Remember Dan Brown? Well what if instead of a white male power-fantasy treasure hunting through vague misappropriations of Christian myth, we had an intelligent, insightful, queer, Black girl with magical plant powers and a mysterious family legacy connected to Greek myth?
Kalynn Bayron looked at Medea's story and said nah, we can do better - and while the story stumbled a few times for me it was never enough to actually take me out of enjoying myself! Ultimately this is a very cool mystery novel that takes the "inherited something weird from a long lost relative" trope and uses it as a playing field to craft a story with magic, gods, ancient secrets, and poison that felt completely original and had my eyes glued to the page (I started reading this at 4 pm, it's now almost 3 am and I'm buzzing trying to decide if I should try to sleep or just dive right into book 2)!
If you're a fan of Greek myth retellings, stories about the secrets you find in weird old houses, or just books where a Black girl gets to be absolutely cool as fuck (AND have two cool moms AND meet a cool mysterious girl) you gotta pick this one up.