It’s been a while since I actually sat down and wrote a post about reading. I have been radio-silence for a while for a few weeks (sorry about that). Let me explain why it’s taken so long – laziness. There’s no other excuse. Sometimes, you need to reset and take your time to enjoy yourself. I don’t need to review every story I read/audiobook, right? Plus I did start then put down several titles because I wasn’t in the right mindset for them (Broken Light by Joanne Harris, Old Babes In The Wood by Margaret Atwood, and several others).
Also, I was binge-watching a lot of TV. I have, finally, caught up with Succession (well, that didn’t go in a direction I was expecting and, at the same time, it did. Satisfyingly so) and I have started Pokerface (which I am thoroughly enjoying).
So, here I am. Touching base with a small write up on a few books I’ve read and maybe a plan for the next few weeks as I’m thinking of taking a short blog holiday at the end of July/start of August. Just for a week or two, nothing major, but want to do some other non-blog related things before I can back for a summer of reading (I feel like I should have a theme for August reading. Thoughts?)
Since my last posts (Sara Barnard’s Where the Light Goes and Tales from Beyond the Raindow by Pete Jordi Wood), I have read/audiobook three books and just started a book (which I am going to mention before I sign off this post) and I am going to touch all each of the read titles now. Now, all of these were gifted to me from publishers either direct or via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and, if I can, I will include affiliate links for these titles, though I believe one is only available as an ebook at the present so no link to that one, sadly.
So, my SpoOOoky Halloween reading isn't exactly going to plan. Come on, did we really think it would? I did start (then stopped for one reason or another) Malice by Heather Walter (I think I might save for this for when I go on a blog break next [Christmas/New Year?]). And with me still finding my feet with new job (when we do stop calling a new job new, exactly?) and my reading/audiobooking taking a bit of a nosedive/spiral, I thought I would throw these two VERY different mini-reviews at you!
I have an extract for you guys as part of the We Played with Fire blog tour (is this my first of 2021? Nope, my second. Sorry, 2020 has turned my blogging brain to slush)! And oh, you are going to really enjoy this (well, I hope you guys do!)
Inspired by the true story of the Fox Sisters in the nineteenth century America, We Played With Fire by Catherine Barter follows the Fox Sisters, Maggie and Kate, as they and their family are spending the winter in a remote farmhouse upstate. They don't believe Maggie has seen impossible things and, bored and angry, she and Kate start to play tricks on each other and the rest of the family: knocking the floorboards above their parents' bedroom, cracking their toes under the table, telling tales of noises in the night.
And that's all fun... till the house stars making noises of its own. Neither Maggie and Kate can explain who or what are making the noises. But... is there something - no, someone - in the house, trying to speak to them...
A historical ghost story? SIGN ME UP!
Ok, so, before I give you the extract to devour, I would like to thank Robert for Andersen for asking if I wanted to be involved in the tour! If you want any info of We Played With Fire, you can visit the author's, Catherine Barter, at her Twitter - @okayjane. You can, also, check out Andersen Press for more details.
Also, we have a virtual book launch happening in the next few days. On this coming Thursday (7th February 2021), Catherine will be having a virtual book launch via Zoom at 7pm (UK Time). And it's free so you can pop in and say hi! The link you'll need if you want to pop along is https://housmans.com/wpwf-launch/!
Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle follows Moa, who only knows the life of working on the Frontier sugar cane plantation in 1760s Jamaica. But Moa has learnt of an uprising, lead by the charistamic Tacky. Moa is to be a cane warrior, hoping to escape and help the fight for freedom of enslaved people in nearby plantations. But before he can do that, Moa and his friend, Keverton, must face their first task: they must kill their Overseer, Misser Donaldson...
I'm hoping to read this in the coming few weeks as I have read a few pages and it's GOOD, and I can tell it's going to be powerful and gripping. So, when Robert from Andersen Press emailed and asked if I wanted to share a small extract from the book with you guys, I jumped at the chance (Thank you Rob)!
Plus, this year and 2021 looks like it's going to be HUGE for Alex! Steve McQueen (yes, Steve ****ing McQueen!) has an episode of Small Axe, based on Alex's life. It will be aired on BBC One in earlier December (I believe 6th December) in the UK & Amazon Prime airing in the US a few days later. Not only that, Noel Clarke and his production company, Unstoppable, is adapting Alex's Crongton series for TV and Crongton Knights was adapted for theatres and was receiving huge praise (and then COVID happened and we all know how that and the Governments of the world is affecting the Art Industry...)
Now, before I give you the extract, just going to point you in directions of where you should go. If you want to say hi to Alex, you can go over to this website of alexwheatle.com or pop him a tweet at @brixtonbard! And if you want more info on Cane Warriors, pop over to Andersen Press. And, if those of you curious over Small Axe, I will pop the BBC trailer below and am putting the BBC Media Centre link here for more information:
Title And Author: Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers
Publisher: Andersen Press
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Physical
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher in exchange for honest review
Length: 523 Pages
As you guys know, I am planning to try and read the whole series of His Fair Assassin by Robin LaFevers this year (as well as Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle - I announced my hopes to read these in this post). But here’s the thing. When I decided this last December, Layla from Andersen Press asked if I wanted to read Courting Darkness and reveal the UK cover. I said yes (because of course I world) and I was given a ring-binder manuscript as finish copies weren’t ready. So, for the past month or so, I have slowly made me way through Courting Darkness.
The fourth book in the His Fair Assassin series (or first in a duology set after the events of the series), we follow Sybella, one of the most gifted of Death’s daughter, serving deadly justice on behalf of St Mortain. But her younger sisters are her newest mission and in a bid to keep them safe, she agrees to accompany the Duchess of Brittany to France where the Duchess will marry the King and bring together the two countries together as one. But as Sybella watches the French court and begins to distrust the King’s sister, she discover that two fellow assassins from the convent of St Mortain have been placed in the court under cover… but how can she find them?
Genevieve has been a faithful assassin to St Mortain, going deep undercover int he French court since she was 12. But she’s been under cover for so long, she no longer knows what she’s fighting for any more. And when she discover a prisoner deep in the castle’s dungeons, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
As these tow women’s path slowly draw closer together, the two must tread careful if they don’t want to lose everything…
COVER REVEAL! COVER REVEAL! MYSELF AND KATE FROM READING THROUGH INFINITY HAVE A COVER REVEAL FOR YOU ALL!!!
... can you tell am a little excited to reveal this?
Anyway, Kate and I revealed this cover on our Twitters about an hour or so ago (Kate is at @Katelovescolour and I'm at @PewterWolf), but we both said we wanted to blog about this cover.
And if you guys haven't guess, I did mention this last week on my His Fair Assassin Mood Board Week. Yes, it's Courting Darkness. And I am quite excited to be involved in the tour as I plan to read the series this year as part of my Year of Blood and Magic and, if you have read this series, there is a lot of blood and murder and assassin nuns! HISTORICAL ASSASSIN NUNS!!!
So I am thrilled and excited to reveal the cover for Courting Darkness and revealing a tad of information about the book!
So... here we are. The last day of my His Fair Assassin mood board week. Though, technically, this isn't a His Fair Assassin book. This, while set in the same world and follows one of the characters we have earlier met, this is the first book in a new duology, Courting Darkness.
No cover, I hear you ask? Well, keep your eyes peeled on my Twitter (@PewterWolf) and on the lovely twitter of Kate at @katelovescolour as we might be showing off the cover of Courting Darkness on Friday 25th, maybe... (keep eyes peeled on Andersen Press's twitter as well. They are at @AndersenPress)
And seeing as I - and a good chuck on readers I love and trust - haven't read this yet, I am going in blind with this mood board and, because of this, this was the hardest mood board to create. I wanted something striking yet...
But before I explain myself more, let's show you the synopsis and all the stupid affiliate links (humour me as am doing this as experiment)...
Day Three of our His Fair Assassin Mood Board Week and it's Mortal Heart. Out of the original His Fair Assassin trilogy, this was probably one of the hardest to create as, while I had a good idea of Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph, I don't know much about Mortal Heart, so I had to trust the book's synopsis far more than I would have liked.
Day Two on my His Fair Assassin Mood Board Week and we're on what I have discover seems to be a fan fave within the series, Dark Truimph. No pressure to get this right, but seeing that I haven't read the book yet or met Sybella and this mysterious Beast. But am intrigued to see if what info I have gathered and used to create my mood board and compare to what I read...
But now, before I hand you my mood board, here is the synopsis of Dark Triumph and explain why I picked some of my choices...
As I told you guys know, I am planning to read His Fair Assassin trilogy by Robin LaFevers and the first book in its companion spinoff, Courting Darkness due to the cover reissuing (Aren't they pretty?). Well, when I was chatting to Layla at Andersen about this, she and I started chatting about ways to give this series some more attention and I said "I love the idea of a mood board. Plus, only read the first years ago so it would be fun to do them based on the synopsis. Plus, fits in with my Year of Blood and Magic as... well... murder and blood!" And Layla said "That sounds weird. I like it! Go for it!"
So, here I am. And because I don't want to do a review this month, this whole week will be mood board on assassin nuns (barring Wednesday. Even I need a break!)
Now, the plan is that am going to show you the book's synopsis, stupid affiliate links where you can buy them and then show you the mood board and chat about where my brain where with it...
Give a warm Pewter Wolf welcome to author (and pilot!) Rob Stevens. His latest book has just been released and it sounds like one that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.
Leon's twin, Lenny, had the coolest imagination. The best. But Lenny died a year ago and Leon and his family haven't been the same since.
So when Leon meets Arnold at school, Leon's not sure what to make of the new boy: he doesn't understand jokes or gets sarcasm and can be completely blunt. But the two make an unlikely friendship and before long, the pair keep finding themselves in trouble. And within the trouble the two cause, is Arnold helping Leon comes to terms with Lenny's death and move forward with his life?
This sounds like one of the those books I could probably read super fast and go "Oh, it's tackled this and this and I like how he did that!", hence why I jumped at the chance to have Rob on the blog when Harriet at Andersen Press asked me.
Now, because Rob is a hugely busy pilot (he might be in the air, flying a plane RIGHT NOW! Now, as you're reading my tiny little post!), he wrote this for me. A small list of authors that write humour brilliant (writing comedy is hard because humour is so subjective, depending on the person listening/reading the joke!), but hopefully, you will read this list and check out these authors!
Anyway, before I go, wanna say thank you to Rob for writing this blog post, even though I know he's super busy and thank you to Harriet at Andersen for asking me if I wanted to be involved. Thank you!
Well, as I am not a huge fan of Halloween (yes, I know. Am a strange blogger!), I am excited to give you a treat and be the last stop on the #ScarecrowBook Blog Tour! And am a little creeped out to welcome Danny Weston onto the blog.
Danny has written several creepy stories - The Piper, Mr Sparks, The Haunting of Jessop Rise and his newest (hence the tour!), The Scarecrow.
Jack's dad turned whistleblower about several very powerful people and their illegal dealings and now both are on the run, fearing for their lives. While laying low in a remote hunting cabin in Scottish Highlands, Jack notices a scarecrow outside and when he notices something incredible, Jack realises that this scarecrow isn't a normal scarecrow. It's alive, hungry and full of unspeakable rage. So when things turn dark, the scarecrow might turn out to be Jack's best chance of survival...
I am thrilled to have Danny on here, and I want to thank him for writing this post for the tour! And I want to thank Harriet from Andersen Press for allowing me to be involved in this tour!
Welcome to your second stop on the Goodbye Days tour! Yes, it's my stop today! And am thrilled to be involved (The Serpent King was a gripping debut and I can't wait for you guys to get involved in this book!).
ANYWAY, If you are not aware of what Goodbye Days is about, a quick overview (keeping spoilers to a min, of course). As Carver waited for his three friends to pick him up to go for a drive, he sends a text. The next thing he knows, their car has crashed, all of his friends are dead and there are people - himself included - who blame him for their deaths. If only he didn't send that text...
Then, one of his friends's grandmother ask Carver to take part in a "goodbye day" together, doing things that his friend loved. Soon, the other families want to hold goodbye days. But not everyone wants to forgive and with Carver's own grief and despair threatening to drown him, are these goodbye days helping people cope or doing more harm than good?
As you know with this tour, Jeff Zenter is giving us each a song from his Goodbye Days playlist and a tiny write-up on why this song is important. In exchange, we were asked to write our thoughts on the book or what we would do if we spent a goodbye day with a loved one.
Before I show you today's music choice, I would just like to say thank you to Jeff for finding time to writing this and making me discover a new song (always on the hunt for new music) and for Harriet at Andersen Press for asking if I wanted to be involved in this tour!
Tomorrow's stop is at Chouett.com so check that out! And now, over to Jeff (and myself!)
You can blame Ryan at Empire of Books for making me read this. No, that's a lie. I was curious over this book but when I saw it on NetGalley, I asked if anyone else had read it and Ryan was so positive over this book, I requested it purely on his energy on this book (his review for The Serpent King is here). If you're on Twitter, go give him a hug.
Set in the deep South of the USA, Dill's father is the prison for an unspeakable crime and with everything and everyone judging him over it, Dill finds comfort in his friends, Lydia and Travis. Travis who is obsessed with the Bloodfall series and Lydia who is planning to leave for New York as soon as she can. Dill fears if she leaves, the darkness within his family will consume him completely.
But Dill's not the only one with worries. Lydia is worried about her friends once she leaves and Travis is hiding a secret about his family. All three need to confront their demons, but will they have the strength to do it?
Even though this sounds and looks like an urban fantasy novel, it is very much a contemporary coming of age novel and this is a strong debut. I love the writing style that Jeff showed - and to discover he is a songwriter, the lyrical style makes sense. There are some sentences and paragraphs that were just glorious! Plus, this book felt Southern. When you read a book that is set in Southern USA, I always find it discover feel right. It feels off somehow. But with Serpent King, it felt just right. The way characters acted, spoke about religion, and (from some characters), the narrow-mindedness and the landscape. It felt right, somehow.
With chapters changing POV between Dill, Lydia and Travis, it was good to see each character and fall in love with each of them separately and together. Each has their story and, because the writing was solid, I felt bored with any character and their stories. Which, in one or two cases, was parents who believed that if their lives after bad, so must their kids - yeah, there were times I got angry at the parents.
Religion is a part of this story and, as someone who isn't very religious, I did worry that it might be overwhelming and possibly forced down my throat. And while it is there and it didn't feel overwhelming.
Some people will feel that this book is predictable but I was sucked into this to noticed. This is one strong debut and I can't wait to read the next book from this author (and to annoy him over maybe getting a Bloodfall novella...)
I will leave this review with a quote that ran throughout the book, spoken by Dolly Parton: "If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one."
Today, I welcome Meaghan McIssac onto the blog. Meaghan is the author of Urgle and her latest, Movers. Movers is a sci-fi novel where some people are born with powers to move people throughout time, even though doing this is very illegal.
In this post, Meaghan talks about how she kept everything time-travel straight in her head while writing Movers. Not only in her first draft, but during her edits as well. As always, my thanks goes to Meaghan (@MeaghanMcIsaac on Twitter) for writing this post for us today and to Harriet (@HarrietDunlea) for setting this all up! Now, over to Meaghan!
So, you want to travel through time on a word scribbling endeavor, do you? If jet lag is a problem for you, you wouldn't believe the headaches that come your way when you try to move through the space-time continuum. But never mind, I can see you are determined to make your way to another day, another time, forwards or backwards. So all I can do, fearless traveller, is my best to prepare you for the rough journey ahead. Strap in.
If you're going to travel through time, the first thing you need is a map — a road plan for the whole trip, a timeline. Whether going forwards or backwards, map out the years from NOW, or whatever your now happens to be, to your year of destination. Be it yesterday, the Jurassic era, next week or the year 2383, there's a lot of space between now and then, and a lot that can happen. You have to know what occurred between these two points, because those events affect EVERYTHING that happens in the NOW and happens in the THEN. Believe me, you'll need to reference the timeline A LOT. Unfortunately, you won't have a navigator and you'll be trying to focus on driving, but still, if you can tear your eyes from the wheel long enough to glance at the timeline roadmap, it really helps keep things on track. If I hadn't had a timeline while working on Movers, I'd probably still be floating somewhere between page 160 and 161. The timeline showed me the way. If you don't have one packed, I suggest you do that. Now. RIGHT NOW.
Even with your timeline roadmap, you'll have to go back and retrace your steps...again and again...and again...and probably again. I rewrote Movers — wait, let me count the drafts — six times. That's the same journey, six times. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Just enough to memorize the route so that eventually, you can avoid the wrong turns and detours. And in those first drafts, there will be many, many wrong turns. Fear not, fearless time journey person! Wrong turns are just a part of traveling through time! Embrace them! But then fix them. Over and over and over again.
Time Travel claims a lot of lives. Like a lot a lot. Somewhere between draft 2 and draft 5 of Movers, a great many of Pat and Gabby's friends didn't make it. The body count, last I checked, was at five. I may be forgetting some people. We laughed, we cried, we travelled far together, as a group. But in the end, these darlings had to go. If you find your journey is weighed down by the deadweight of superfluous characters, pitch 'em overboard, shove 'em out the hatch, leave 'em behind and never look back. Time travel demands you pack light — that includes the people you take with you. It's a harsh reality, fearless traveller, so ask yourself: do you have the heart?
The grandfather paradox will eat your brain. What is the grandfather paradox? OK, crash course: the grandfather paradox asks basically (and I mean very basically because this is as far as I understand it), if you travelled back in time to kill your grandfather before he met your grandmother, then your dad would never be born, then you would never be born in the future, and therefore you could never go back in time in the first place to kill him. Take a second, digest that. Dizzy yet? Try to fix it all you want, this sucker is gonna pop up again and again in one form or another. At some point, you just have to say...whatever. If the world explodes, then the world explodes. But for the sake of the journey, you just gotta carry on. So carry on, fearless traveller. Try your best to swerve away from the paradox potholes, but if you plow through a little one every now and then, don't beat yourself up. You may come away battered and bruised, but you'll survive, gosh darnit!
So, worthy adventurer, knowing all that I've just told you, I wish you all the luck in the universe on your time travel journey. It's a hard beast to wrangle, but if you have the guts, it's a journey you'll enjoy from start to finish.
I want to state something before I go into this review. I am not a historical reader. It never really interested me and if when I do read something that has a set of history, I need it to be laced with fantasy. I need something to take the oddness away, if that makes anything.
So, when Eve from Andersen Press emailed asking if I wanted to read this, I was a little hesitant over it. But I read the info and watched the trailer. It was the trailer that changed my mind and made me go "I have to read this!". There's a line in the trailer that goes "Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?" and instantly I thought, "Now that sounds interesting. I shall investigate this..."
In medieval Brittany, there is a convert. The convert of Saint Mortain, and the nuns at this convert aren't normal nuns. They are assassins, doing the work of their saint.
When Ismae is sent to the court of Brittany, she finds her suddenly unprepared for court life. Not only the games of intrigues, treasons and politics, but also of the heart... Soon, her loyalists will be tested...
Now, as I have stated before, this is a historical novel and I don't do historical reads. So, maybe this is me being outside of my comfort zone (as a book blogger, I feel that you have to read books that are in genres you don't usually read), but this book was long and quite intense. I don't mean intense as in it had intense action scene or romantic love sense, but it was just intense. You had to learn EVERY little detail of court life, of poisons, of convert life, of politics. And because of this intense, it took me AGES (at least over half way) before it clicked in my brain and I went "Oh! Ok! I think I get this now!" and because it took so long to understand that, within the second week of reading this (this took nearly 3 weeks for me to read, which is slow by my standards), I had to stop and read a candy floss book to give myself a break from the intensity!
And because of the intensity of the book, the pace felt slow and this is why I felt it was a long read. The pace was slower than my normal reads and there were times I was going "Would you hurry up and get to the point!". On several occasions, I wanted to grab a Basilisk fang and stabbing the book, waiting to see if the book would bleed ink like in Harry Potter and the Chamber and Secrets.
But, with all that said, I can see people liking this. On more than one occasion, I thought that fans of the Poison Study series by Maria V. Snyder and The Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series by Garth Nix would like this.
And with everyone else I know seeming to go "This book is awesome", I feel like the odd one out saying "It's good, but not my cup of tea". But I think if you're a reader who likes historical reads with an edge of paranormal/fantasy, you might want to investigate this book. But for me... sorry...
Although I am intrigued on the sequel in the series, Dark Triumph, who follows a character who seems completely broken and flawed (and possibly on the verge of a mental breakdown)... Also, if I see the word "Mayhap" (I think it's "maybe" but not sure) in the next few months, I will not be held responsible for my actions...
When I was asked to read Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, I jumped at the chance. It sounded so outside my comfort zone and yet complete inside it too (my review will be coming in the next few weeks). So, when I was asked if I wanted to take part in the tour, I jumped at the chance yet again (thanks Eve for letting me take part)!
Before we let the author, Robin LaFevers, take over my blog, must say that if you are interested in the book, there is an sneaky peek online (which you can go via here), you can join the UK Facebook Group, and there's a trailer for the book (that's at the bottom of the post!). Also, if you're following the tour, tomorrow is at So Many Books, So Little Time, so go there!
So, on the penultimate leg of her UK blog tour, author Robin LaFevers takes about poisons. So, take it away, Robin...!
Poison: The Assassin’s Art
“We will teach you to make poisons.”
Sister Serafina’s voice is as gentle as the lulling waves. “Poisons that grip
the gut and force a man’s life to dribble from him into a slop pail. Poisons to
stop the heart or squeeze the humors from the body. Bloodwort to congeal the
blood so it can no longer move through the veins. We will show you subtle
poisons that take days to fell a man, and those that kill within seconds. And
that is just to start.”
Ismae spends a
large part of her time at the convent of Saint Mortain with the poisons
mistress in her workshop. Too much time, perhaps, as she ends up missing other
important lessons in order to keep up with the convent’s demand. However, other
than Sister Serafina, Ismae is the only one who has the special skills needed
to work with such toxins. Many of the plants and other ingredients used in the
poisons were so toxic that merely touching them or breathing in their fumes at
the wrong time could prove fatal to the other girls at the convent.
Poisons were a standby of the medieval assassin’s toolkit. They were
cheap, easy to find, and even easier to use. Hemlock, nightshade, belladonna,
monkshood, thorn apple, lily of the valley, rosary pea, hensbane, hellebore,
foxglove, mandrake, opium, cantharides (extracted from dried beetles),
mushrooms (including death cap, avenging angel, deadly webcap). Even the mold
that formed on damp rye was poisonous and was called Saint Anthony’s Fire.
Depending on the ingredients used, some poisons provide a peaceful
death, others a much more painful one, with paralysis of the heart,
convulsions, cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, and the drying up of all
bodily fluids.
True master poisoners weren’t content with a simple plant extract or
decoction. They often created compounds or went for a multilayered approach to
creating the perfect poison. For example, Sister Serafina, like other medieval
poisoners, kept her own beehive. Her bees collected pollen almost exclusively
from the toxic rhododendron and laurel plants, which in turn tainted the honey.
Thus, even the sweeteners used in the convent’s poison were deadly.
But at the convent of Saint Mortain, Death’s handmaidens sometimes
preferred an even subtler approach. In those cases they might serve their victim
a quail who had fed on hemlock while alive, or a rabbit who dined on
belladonna. The meat would often contain enough toxic effects of those plants
to kill a person.
Ingesting poison wasn’t the only method employed by poisoners.
Depending on what sort of access they had to their victim and how far away they
wanted to be when the poison took effect, there were other ways to administer
the deadly substance. Some poison had merely to come into contact with the
skin. Historically, gloves, gowns, hunting horns, have all been used to
transmit poison to a victim. For these sorts of applications, the convent used
a formulation they called Arduina’s Snare.
Other substances were so toxic that simply breathing them brought
death. Pomanders were often used by the noble classes to protect their delicate
noses from the inescapable medieval stench found in cities. Consequently,
pomanders also became a reliable method for delivering inhaled poisons. Ismae
herself uses a carefully crafted candle that contains a poison called Night
Whispers. Once lit, the fumes from that candle can kill in minutes.
Of course, the convent (or assassins) wasn’t the only source of
poisons. Many, many noble and wealthy families in the Middle Ages had their own
poisoner on staff. One simply never knew when there was a pesky political rival
or fractious neighbor that needed to be got rid of.
This poisoner not only was responsible for having poisons at the
ready for the family’s use, but was expected to be able to prepare a number of
effective antidotes as well. Some popular antidotes were waving gemstones, such
as emeralds or rubies, over one’s plate or cup to nullify the poison. Drinking
from a unicorn’s horn was believed to neutralize all poison. (Narwhal tusks
were often mistaken for unicorn’s horns back then and were even more expensive
than the rubies or emeralds.) Bezoars stones were also renowned for their
poison-neutralizing properties. These “stones” were found in the stomachs of
goats. Or, without a goat, a deer’s, antelope’s, or gazelle’s. The stone was
actually an indigestible object that had found its way into the animal’s
stomach and had accumulated layers of secreted stomach chemicals to form a
“stone” around the foreign object, much like a pearl forms around a grain of
sand in an oyster. A popular practice of the time was to place a bezoars stone
in your cup to neutralize any poison that might find its way there. (Can we all
say, Ewwww!)
The very wealthy would also employ poison tasters who would sample any dishes or drinks for them. If they tasted nothing suspicious - and did not show any ill effects - then the food was considered safe to eat. The problem was, many medieval foods were so heavily spiced that poison was hard to detect until it was too late. Nor would a poison taster be of much use if the poison was absorbed through the skin or lungs. For those who couldn’t afford any of the above,
the best recommendation was to drink large quantities of milk. Or engage in
vomiting and purging.
Oddly enough, it is these last remedies that come the closest to
modern science.
