The Royal Art of Poison

The Royal Art of Poison
Author: Eleanor Herman
Publisher: Prelude Books
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2018-11-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 071565313X

The story of poison is the story of power... For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with lead. Men rubbed feces on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

A Beautiful Poison

A Beautiful Poison
Author: Lydia Kang
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919
ISBN: 9781477848876

Just beyond the Gilded Age, in the mist-covered streets of New York, the deadly Spanish influenza ripples through the city. But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned--and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note. Desperate for answers and dreading her own engagement to a wealthy gentleman, Allene returns to her passion for scientific discovery and recruits her long-lost friends, Jasper and Birdie, for help. The investigation brings her closer to Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital who still holds her heart, and offers the delicate Birdie a last-ditch chance to find a safe haven before her fragile health fails. As more of their friends and family die, alliances shift, lives become entangled, and the three begin to suspect everyone--even each other. As they race to find the culprit, Allene, Birdie, and Jasper must once again trust each other, before one of them becomes the next victim.

My Beautiful Poison

My Beautiful Poison
Author: T.L. Smith
Publisher: T.L Smith
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

I forgave him for the lies he told. And I forgave him for breaking my body with his touch. But I couldn’t forgive myself for staying. Until I met you… my antidote. I knew I couldn’t keep forgiving him, when I could be safe in your arms. With your touch, there were no tears. With your kisses, I could finally breathe. You might be the villain in everyone’s story... But not mine.

A Great and Terrible Beauty

A Great and Terrible Beauty
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2010-05-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0731814908

It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?

Deadly American Beauty

Deadly American Beauty
Author: John Glatt
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2007-04-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429904747

Greg DeVillers was a top biotech executive, and Kristen Rossum was embarking on a career in toxicology at the San Diego Medical Examiner's office. They seemed to be happily married, living the American dream. But only months shy of their second anniversary, Kristen found her handsome husband dead from a drug overdose-his corpse sprinkled with rose petals. By his side was their wedding photo. The scene was reminiscent of American Beauty, one of Kristen's favorite movies. Authorities deemed it a suicide. Until they discovered that the rare poison found in Greg's body was the same poison missing from Kristen's office. Until they discovered the truth about Kristen's lurid affair, about her own long-time drug addiction, and about the personal and professional secrets she would kill to keep hidden-secrets that would ultimately expose the beautiful blonde as the deadly beauty she really was...a Deadly American Beauty

Tales from the Kingdoms

Tales from the Kingdoms
Author: Sarah Pinborough
Publisher: Gollancz
Total Pages: 656
Release: 2016-04-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781473202337

'This is not your Disney fairy tale. It is much, much better' Wilder's Book Review Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty - stories you love, and that we all think we know . . . . . . but what about the secrets hidden within them? Why would a prince fall in love with a woman in a coffin? Why would a queen try so hard to poison her step-daughter? And what is a fairy Godmother's real motivation? Turn the page, and discover these classic fairy stories, told the way they always should have been . . . This collection includes the award-winning novella BEAUTY, as well as the superb novellas POISON and CHARM. 'Brilliantly subverts the classic fairy tale' One Chapter More

Behind the Lie

Behind the Lie
Author: Emilya Naymark
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1643858939

NYPD detective turned small town PI Laney Bird is in a fight to save lives—including her own—after a neighborhood block party turns deadly. A transplant to the upstate New York hamlet of Sylvan, all Laney wants is a peaceful life for herself and her son. But things rarely remain calm in Laney’s life—and when her neighborhood summer block party explodes in shocking violence and ends with the disappearance of her friend and another woman, she’ll need all her skills as a PI to solve a mystery that reaches far beyond her small town. As people closest to Laney fall under suspicion, the local authorities and even her colleagues question her own complicity. And then there’s fifteen-year-old Alfie, her complicated and enigmatic son, obviously hiding something. Even as Laney struggles to bury evidence of her boy’s involvement, his cagey behavior rings every maternal alarm. Laney’s personal life unravels as she’s drawn into her missing friend’s dark secrets and she realizes she and Alfie are in danger. With treachery blazing hot as the searing summer sun, Laney fights to save lives, her family’s included.

Poison's Kiss

Poison's Kiss
Author: Breeana Shields
Publisher: Ember
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2017-12-12
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1101937858

A teenage assassin kills with a single kiss until she is ordered to kill the one boy she loves. This commercial YA fantasy is romantic and addictive—like a poison kiss—and will thrill fans of Sarah J. Maas and Victoria Aveyard. Marinda has kissed dozens of boys. They all die afterward. It’s a miserable life, but being a visha kanya—a poison maiden—is what she was created to do. Marinda serves the Raja by dispatching his enemies with only her lips as a weapon. Until now, the men she was ordered to kiss have been strangers, enemies of the kingdom. Then she receives orders to kiss Deven, a boy she knows too well to be convinced he needs to die. She begins to question who she’s really working for. And that is a thread that, once pulled, will unravel more than she can afford to lose. This rich, surprising, and accessible debut is based in Indian folklore and delivers a story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Poison Study

Poison Study
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2012-08-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1459248260

From New York Times Bestselling Author Maria V. Snyder Choose: a quick death… or slow poison… Locked deep in the palace dungeon for killing her abuser, Yelena knows she’ll never be free again. The laws in Ixia are strict, and murderers must be executed, no matter the reason. But just as she’s resigned herself to her fate, she’s offered an extraordinary reprieve. As the food taster, Yelena will eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. To make matters worse, the chief of security deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust, and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again, and in order to survive, she must unravel the secrets behind the past she’s been running from. The Chronicles of Ixia Series by Maria V Snyder Book One: Poison Study Book Two: Magic Study Book Three: Fire Study Book Four: Storm Glass Book Five: Sea Glass Book Six: Spy Glass Book Seven: Shadow Study Book Eight: Night Study Book Nine: Dawn Study

Hide in Place

Hide in Place
Author: Emilya Naymark
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1643856375

She left the NYPD in the firestorm of a high-profile case gone horribly wrong. Three years later, the ghosts of her past roar back to terrifying life. When NYPD undercover cop Laney Bird's cover is blown in a racketeering case against the Russian mob, she flees the city with her troubled son, Alfie. Now, three years later, she's found the perfect haven in Sylvan, a charming town in upstate New York. But then the unthinkable happens: her boy vanishes. Local law enforcement dismisses the thirteen-year-old as a runaway, but Laney knows better. Alfie would never abandon his special routines and the sanctuary of their home. Could he have been kidnapped--or worse? As a February snowstorm rips through the region, Laney is forced to launch her own investigation, using every trick she learned in her years undercover. As she digs deeper into the disappearance, Laney learns that Alfie and a friend had been meeting with an older man who himself vanished, but not before leaving a corpse in his garage. With dawning horror, Laney discovers that the man was a confidential informant from a high-profile case she had handled in the past. Although he had never known her real identity, he knows it now. Which means several other enemies do, too. Time is running out, and as Laney's search for her son grows more desperate, everything depends on how good a detective she really is--badge or no.