Poison by Sara Poole

Sara Poole's Poison called to me in the Borders outlet of The Curve. I felt it to fulfill all the points of my checklist and bought it without reading it through first, a rarity. I spent the whole afternoon and night reading it, and I can't believe I thought I would be able to defer the second half to the morrow. I couldn't put it down, as draggy as it seemed to be at certain parts.

Before the Tudors, there were the Borgias.

I would recommend YOU to read this book, except I know that it may not be to everyone's tastes. Here's a short synopsis.

      It's a historical fiction based on the house of Borgia. The Borgias were like an earlier, Vatican version of the Tudors in early Renaissance Rome. Known as the original crime family in history, it is this family that Mafian The Godfather was based on. This was in the late 15th century when everyone killed everyone and slept with everyone and cardinals counted away the days until which the blood-drinking pope would finally die. In this book, the main character is Francesca Giordano, the poisoner's daughter very skilled in poison herself. When her father is murdered she seeks justice, and in order to put herself in a position of power Francesca kills her father's replacement and becomes the employed poisoner of Cardinal Borgia himself. Somewhere on the way she murders/attempts to murder quite a number of other people and her internal indecision at the state of her soul is very intriguing. She also has to help the zuperr corrupted Cardinal Borgia become Pope Alexander VI. All this is set against the historically accurate backdrop of a very screwed up Catholic Church.

LOL.
(Yes, this is what I've filled my head with when I ought to be studying.)

If you actually read through that and are feeling rather nonplussed right now, I don't blame you - I'm kind of shocked at myself as well. But, if you are not, this book is a must read!

I don't know if I'm happy or not that this book is the first in a series yet to come. Sometimes, books that are great as a stand-alone novel are stretched out to become a series and it's not always a good thing. Ah well, I'll wait for April 2011 and then we'll see.