by Addie Thorley
Published on February 26, 2019 by Page Street
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 391
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Young Adult
No one looks kindly on the killer of a king.
After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge.
Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half of the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, Josse’s hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible―until his path collides with Mirabelle’s.
She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. They are sworn enemies, yet they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?
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I’m not a big historical fiction fan unless there’s some sort of fantastical element to the story, and An Affair of Poisons had that. But it still didn’t quite hold my attention.
Initially, I was hooked. One protagonist makes poisons. Another is the bastard of a king. Immediately interested. I love watching historical dramas and recently finished Versailles on Netflix before reading this book so I was already in the mood. But then things started slowing down. . .
I think part of it was the alternating perspectives. An Affair of Poisons switches between Mirabelle and Josse and that’s all well and good, but I didn’t really care about Mira. I was interested in her work, but not her as a character. I didn’t really know why Mira was a protagonist. She could have been a side character and served the same purpose. I never felt like she really knew what she wanted to do and was just following Josse and his plans. He had a motive, a goal, to protect his sisters in whatever way he could. I understood why he was a main character and enjoyed reading from his perspective. But that meant I spent half the book just waiting for the next chapter and the character change which is never good.
On the plus side, Thorley crafted beautifully flawed characters that felt very real and very distinct so I was never confused about whose perspective I was reading from. Mira just didn’t seem like she should be a protagonist, that’s all.
As for the story, I was intrigued by the idea of overthrowing the government . . and then doing it again. There’s some magic in this world in the form of alchemy but it wasn’t really explained, you’re just expected to take it as is. Which, of course, is the part I was most interested in. The back and forth with Mira and Josse trying to take down the Shadow Society dragged on. I put An Affair of Poisons down several times and read other books in between before finishing it.
Maybe it’s the genre, or maybe it was the story and writing style, but this book felt like it went on forever. I would definitely have enjoyed it as a TV series which is how I got into historical dramas in the first place, but as a book I struggled a bit.
I didn’t dislike An Affair of Poisons, but I wasn’t WOWed by it either. I think a huge part of that had to do with the fact that I didn’t care about one of the main characters. That said, I loved the dynamic between the book’s cast as a whole, and there were some really great action scenes. I just wanted a bit more magic, a bit more agency from Mira, and a quicker pace overall. I’d still recommend the book to historical fiction fans and think it’s a great standalone for those interested in the era after the reign of King Louis XIV in Paris.
About Austine
I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.
This book sounds so great! Definitely adding it to my TBR!