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A Blood Water Paint-style historical YA in prose and verse from New York Times bestselling author Joy McCullough.
Early Seventeenth-Century Rome
For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be a part of La Tofana's, her mother's apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she finally turns sixteen, she's allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there's another potion requiring darker ingredients. And then there's Aqua Tofana, the apothecary's remedy of last resort. In all Carmela's years of wishing to follow in her mother's footsteps, she never realized one tiny vial could be the death of them all.
Everything Is Poison is a story of a deadly secret hiding in plain sight and of the women who risk everything to provide care for those with nowhere else to turn.
"Bracing…Enrapturing…This eloquent, rapid-fire novel is rich in cadence and history." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Fans of McCullough's Blood Water Paint (2018) will be enthralled to delve into another story that includes interspersed verse on the subject of 'giving women a choice over what happens to their bodies.' A must-read for those who embrace the #MeToo movement." —Booklist (starred review)
"Everything Is Poison's mixture of tenderness, brutality, loneliness, resignation, and joy makes for an intimate reading experience. Free-verse poems between prose chapters elevate the story and highlight the universal elements. An emotionally stirring celebration of women finding community." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about Everything Is Poison was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joy McCullough is a playwright and the New York Times bestselling author of many books for children and young adults, including Blood Water Paint, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area.
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