A Fierce and Subtle Poison is a beautiful look at young women doing what they have to do, when they have to do it, even when riddled by trauma. Samantha Mabry's writing is bewitching and her modern magical realism is enchanting.

This book reads like a modern fairy tale as it swirls magic in the real world until you're not quite sure what is real and what is imaginary. Lucas is spending the summer in Puerto Rico where the legend of the green-skinned girl is whispered by the old women in town. Lucas finally meets this mysterious girl and is soon pulled into her world.

This book, set in Puerto Rico, has elements of magical realism and is beautifully written, although at times I was confused. All in all, it was an enjoyable read!

I would like to thank Algonquin Young Readers for providing me with a free ARC, via Netgalley, in exchange for an open and honest review.

Okay, so this book has been in my TBR pile for *cough* a few year and I’d not gotten around to it. For that I must apologise to Ms Mabry as you deserve better. ‘A Fierce and Subtle Poison’ was a fantastic, well written mystery thriller for the YA/NA genre. It had a nice coming of age feel to it, mixed in with mystery, the supernatural and adventure. A very nice and well balanced mix then coated in some well-described locations and believable characters.

The story was a little hard to get into a first as I couldn’t quit tell when it was set – the year/ era. But that soon sorted itself out and things were smooth sailing for me from then.

I enjoyed the red, raw feel of some of the scenes. There was no sugar coating life or giving everyone a ‘HEA’ – Happily Ever After - and this is the sort of thing more YA/NA books need.

And that ending! Oh, that ending! Yes ‘A Fierce and Subtle Poison’ was all wrapped up nice and neat and mostly gave closure to the story… MOSTLY! But there were, to me, some enticing threads drifting about teasing at further tales to come. Are there? I have no idea. Does there need to be? No, not really, but I wouldn’t say no to reading the next book if it did exist. Though I will state here and now it works perfectly as a stand-alone book and maybe I am just being greedy while recovering from the mild book hangover I received. ;-)

All in all it was a well-pace, well-described and perfectly balanced story that lovers of YA/NA supernatural mystery would enjoy. I mean, the supernatural is more a hint that a major undercurrent… but that, coupled with the coming of age, mystery and setting makes it a great read.

Would I recommend this book to others?

Yes I would. Definitely a book for lovers of the YA/NA mystery genres. As I keep saying, there was a great balance of everything a YA/NA mystery should be in ‘A Fierce and Subtle Poison’.

Would I buy this book for myself?

I would, but will be honest by stating I still have the free copy I was sent so don’t need to buy it. A terrible thing to say because one should always support a book and author they like by actually buying their books. But still my situation, I have a copy, won’t be buying one in this case. Though I can see myself reading it again in the future as it was just that sort of engaging and entertaining tale.

In summary: An excellent YA/NA mystery thriller, I highly recommend.

An extremely popular book among teen readers at work.

A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry sounded like such an incredible read, and while I did enjoy it, I was so very disappointed.

The description is very misleading. The description gives the idea that some magical creature lives on the island. And to an extent, that's kind of true, in that she is an impossibility, but she is not a girl with green skin and grass for hair, who can grant wishes, or has magic. She is a girl whose touch could kill, but only because she has poison running through her veins due to a family curse - poison that is slowly killing her. Otherwise, there's nothing special about her. That sounds awful, but I just expected so much from Isabel, and she's not what anyone believes. It's funny because the description talks about "legends", it's not saying it's true - but when it comes to fantasy, the legends normally turn out to be true. Just not all of them in this case.

A Fierce and Subtle Poison is pretty much a magical realism and mystery mash up. In Puerto Rico, where Lucas spends his Summers with his father at the hotel his father's company owns, girls are going missing, but then their bodies wash up against the shore a few days later. Marisol, a girl Lucas has just started seeing, is the latest girl to be found washed up on the shore. The same day she goes missing, Lucas receives a note from the cursed girl living in the house at the end of the road underneath his door; he knows it's from her, because it's on the paper Marisol had written her wish on before throwing it over the girl's wall, on it saying she can't grant Marisol's wish. On the day Marisol's body is discovered, another note is pushed under Lucas' door, this time written on a wish he threw over the girl's wall a number of years ago. This one saying she knows something about what happened to Marisol. But then Lucas finds out the girl is just Isabel, a girl who is dying from the poison in her veins, a girl who's only survived this long because of the poison plants in her garden which absorb her power, but it's not going to work always. There doesn't seem to really be any link between the missing girls and Isabel - Isabel was just annoyed that people were throwing things over her wall, and jealous of the life they could live. Lucas wants to work out the mystery of Marisol's death, but he's now also drawn to Isabel, and wants to help her survive.

It just wasn't the magical story I was expecting. Isabel is more ordinary than I was led to believed, even if she's not that ordinary. I was expecting something much more magical. And although it's a mystery that is interesting and keeps you reading, it's also a pretty predictable one, and I figured out pretty early on what was happening.

However, I did love the magical realism aspects of the story; why Isabel had poison in her body, the curse on her family, and if she would survive, but there isn't much of a focus on that part. It's almost second to the mystery. But I did love how things just were; Isabel is poisonous because of a curse, but there's no explanation as to how the poison got there, or how the curse worked. It just is, and you have to accept it. And I love that about magical realism, how, if it's done right, you don't even question it.

I also loved that the book was set in Puerto Rico - the descriptions of the place were just so gorgeous - and how almost every character bar Lucas, his father, and Isabel's father, are Latinx (which you would expect, right? But I have previously read a book that was set in a different country, and yet all the named characters were from the US or the UK, so this seems like something to point out as a good thing). Well, I think Lucas is white; he's called a "gringo" like his father, and he looks white. There is a conversation between Isabel and Lucas about his ethnicity, because his mum was from the Dominican Republic - Isabel says that she wouldn't have thought he was half Dominican, but Lucas replies that if she met his mum, she'd think he looked just like her, because she had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was adopted in the Dominican Republic by a white couple, and she was brought up there, but Lucas doesn't know anything about her biological parents. So she may be white? The blonde hair and blue eyes seem to indicate that, but I know not only white people have blue eyes, and I'm sure not only white people have blonde hair. So it's a possibility she's not white, but it's just not known, because she never knew anything about her biological parents.

Overall, an enjoyable story if you don't mind possibly predicting what's happened to the girls, if you don't expect too much from the magical realism side of things, and if you don't expect an evil, green, magical girl who can grant wishes.

Thank you Algonquin Young Readers via NetGalley for the eProof.

I will not be providing a review for this novel at this time, but I thoroughly thank the publisher for the ability to read the novel before the publication date.

The writing was absolutely beautiful. The setting was lush and unusual and something new. The plot...a bit confusing. And not in the delightful way you come to expect with magical realism either. It read like MR for a while until I realized it just wasn't as well fleshed out as it should be in order to work. Overall a beautiful read but it did take me a lot longer, and a lot of putting down and picking up, to finish this book.

A vibrant kind of novel that pulses with life and intrigue. Fascinating novel, well told with an interesting premise that is well executed.

Woooooow, this was so good! I can't believe it took so long for me to get to this--the writing was phenomenal and the plot kept me hooked the entire time!