 | THE POISONER Cheri Scotch
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Genre: Historical Fiction |
In Rome of 1497, if you’re a woman with a serious problem, the most serious solution is Proserpina Toffara. Publicly, she is a fortuneteller.
Privately, she is a poisoner.
Renaissance Italy is full of men who have learned that poison is just another step to political power, but Proserpina doesn’t concern herself with them. Her only concern is women—women in unhappy, arranged marriages, or who are about to be forced into them; women who have been brutalized, who are almost without hope; women forced by circumstances into desperation; and women who are inherently treacherous...they all find redemption of sorts at Proserpina’s door.
She gives them more than poison, though. In an age proud of its “enlightened humanism,” Proserpina sees no reason why that enlightenment shouldn’t extend to women, as long as a woman is willing to make her own destiny. “If it is God’s will that our bodies are weak,” she tells her clients, “then it also His will that our minds are devious.”
Proserpina’s own destiny becomes clear when she is approached by the most famous widow in Rome, Lucrezia Borgia. For a rich, supposedly pampered girl, Lucrezia’s private life has been a nightmare. Forced in marriage by her her brother, Cesare Borgia, and her father, Pope Alexander VI, then forced to get an annulment and remarry for political convenience, and forced to give up the only man she ever loved for real, as well as the child he fathered, Lucrezia has nothing. Except for a name: Proserpina Toffara. And her overwhelming rage, hidden inside an obedient daughter who is willing to wait until the right moment... |
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The Zack Company, Inc.