The poison diaries

by Maryrose Wood
Readers will be intrigued by both the romance and complex moral questions in this fantasy set in late-18th-century England. Jessamine, 16, lives with her apothecary father, in the remote countryside near Alnwick Castle. As she keeps house and tends to the gardens, there is one place she is forbidden to go: only her father enters the locked apothecary garden where he nurtures poisonous plants collected from all over the world. Their pastoral existence is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Weed, a straggly teenage orphan who has an inexplicable knowledge of the medicinal uses of plants.

Told mostly in Jessamine's voice, the story has a compelling sense of urgency and mystery. The book is based on a concept by the current Duchess of Northumberland who created the real Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle.
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