Let me start by saying that this book has one of the most gorgeous covers I have seen (I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover, but this cover makes me want to put the book on display somewhere). Not only was the cover beautiful, but the illustrations done by the author herself are breathtaking. It really showed the author's dedication to all the complex women she researched when writing this book.

As a true crime lover, I really liked how the poisoners were organized into categories so you could better understand their motivations behind their crimes. My favorite chapter was titled 'Professional Poisoners.' This chapter explained how, back in the day, women sold poison to be used against men as a way of helping women escape from abusive marriages. For me, this was important because it showed that not all of the women who poisoned people did it out of evil intentions.

I have found a new woman to research from this book that interests me. Her name is Giulia Tofana, and I plan on finding more books about her to read.

Another thing that the author does, which is so lovely, is include and cite all of her sources. For me, this highlights how much effort the author has put into researching the women and how she wants to acknowledge others for informing her studies.

The only critique that I have was I noticed some typos (like different spellings of the same names, maybe that's intentional for some reason that I don't understand?), which was no big deal since they were so minor and did not take away from the book.

Overall, a very lovely book with incredible illustrations. I definitely learned a lot about poison and certainly have a newfound respect for all the women in this book who dedicated their lives to the art of poison making!

After wanting to read this book for a while now, I must say that it does not disappoint. One thing that absolutely enchanted me was the gorgeous writing style. The book takes place in an isolated castle in Styria, Austria. The beauty of it all was the imagery used by the author that made it seem like I was right there along side the characters. The language of the author truly romanticized every aspect of this book and made it all the more magnificent.

Since this book was written in the 1800s, I really got a feel of the historical descriptions of the era. I was a little worried at first that I would be able to understand the vocabulary in the book since it was written so long ago, but I had no trouble at all in following the plot and understanding details of the book. It seemed like the perfect mix of modern and old-fashioned literature that honestly made me want to add some of the sayings into my vocabulary.

Now there was something that I was a little upset with. The main character’s name, Laura, was not mentioned until maybe halfway through the book. If I had not read the back cover in advance and known her name, I would’ve been still questioning what her name was. It was a little strange to me that we knew the name of Carmilla before we knew the name of our main character.

Now my biggest issue with the book, why was it so short?! I crave more of this beautiful Gothic literature! And I crave more of Laura and Carmilla‘s relationship. I wish more was shown between Laura and Carmilla because they seemed to have such beautiful moments together filled with yearning and I wanted more. As soon as the book was over my first thought was: ‘oh that’s it?…I miss my sapphics now😔’.

Overall good book, I finished it in less than an hour and a half (yes, that’s how short it was) and I would definitely recommend it to others who are thinking about reading it!