How is this her DEBUT?! Oh wow. The worldbuilding, the character development, the magic system? So intrinsically sound, so beautifully done. Loads of representation, delightful quotes and just such gripping storytelling. I loved this!!

“There were many ways to brew love and each had the potential to kill you”

I ended up reading and listening to the audiobook and I really loved the book and definitely recommend listening to the audiobook.

Our MC, Venus, is a witch who sells illegal love potions which when brewing them leaves her with debilitating side effects. But getting caught can mean death.
But when her mother is killed and she’s given the chance to get revenge she has to decide to what lengths she will go.

This was such a great story with a brutal but unique magic system and I loved seeing how magic exists in the world.
Venus is a great complex character who is an eldest daughter and has a complicated relationship with her family. I also loved seeing the female rage and especially how it fuelled her to keep going. And there are some great discussions on grief, love & friendship.

The Poisons We Drink was an easy read (even with all the magic systems!)

Venus is a brewer who lost her father at a young age; her mother now shows no mercy, sharpening her and her sister in the hopes they will survive the world of SWIGs - but everything goes wrong. Her family - cousin Tyrell, Aunt Key, Uncle Bram, and ex-best-friend Presley - will all have to join together to beat not only the SWIGs, but a hidden enemy.

4.5 stars, rounded up!

Favorite quotes:
~ "Has history taught us nothing? Old worlds must be burned for new worlds to rise. You cannot want a revolution and fear its fire. Everything must burn."

~ " There's three sides to a revolution. The right side, the wrong side and the sidelines. Which side do you want us on?"

Woof, this one was a wild ride!

After seeing this beautiful cover, I couldn't resist requesting this book and I'm so glad I did!
You got to know something about, if there's witches, I am IN! I mean, seriously, witchcraft and badass women admist a political crisis? Sounds like it's written just for me!

I loved the magical system and the whole lore around it. It felt very original and I love that. I do feel like magical worlds tend to resemble one another, but here, it felt very different and fresh, which I definitely appreciate.
The characters were all very complex and very special. I loved following them all on their own paths to self determination, freedom, liberation and love.
The plot??? Jeez, I mean, it took a while for the whole wordlbuilding to settle, but once we had all the necessary info, it was BIM BAM BOOM, one twist after another and it was incredible. I did see some coming, which always fills me with immense satisfaction. But overall, I was definitely surprised throughout the book.
I loved that the intrigue took most the space, but the romance reader in me was extremely pleased we still had little love crumbs to follow.

It did take me a while to fully get into the story. But I do feel like it's a me problem. Once I switched up to the audiobook, everything flowed so easily and I couldn't get enough. The narrator was absolutely incredible and they managed to suck me in completely.

Would definitely recommend this book to anyone!

Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks UK and the author for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. I borrowed the audiobook from Libby. All views are my own.

I tried so so hard to continue with this book, but I just couldn't. It felt rushed and choppy. I managed to get to 43% before I called DNF. It just isn't for me unfortunately but I'm sure others will love it!

Respectfully, I think this just wasn't for me. I ended up not finishing it, so I can't give a fully realised review -- and I feel bad for it, because I requested this. I didn't connect with any of the characters and I thought the worldbuilding didn't quite work for me. There were some pacing issues that I didn't quite know what to do with: there always seemed to be something going on, but it felt a bit disjointed, a bit like it would hurry too much over some things and not let others marinate. I think ultimately it dragged too much for me and I ended up not finishing it. I'm not a YA reader anymore and maybe that's it? I hope this works for other people though! I think it will. It's interesting.

A captivating and action packed debut which will have my students on the edge of their seats. A very strong first novel from an exciting new author!

I love this genre and found this book almost came together but something was missing. Loved the creativity in building this magical world. with some fresh ideas and no shortage of action. But it didn't read smoothly for me, which meant there were times where I felt unengaged. Certain concepts needed more explaining and other scenes were too detailed. Neither did I feel connected to the characters, so I was less invested in their success. A brave attempt with some fresh ideas.

I want to thank Netgalley for an advanced ARC of this book

I started this excited to read but I soft DNF'D afew times until now when and it was an OK read but wasn't brilliant and toke a week for me to read it, the beginning with some characters I didn't like but I did enjoy it more when it got to the second part of the book.



3.5 stars

4.0⭐️

Thank you so much for the review copy of this book!

The Poisons We Drink is a particularly unique story with excellent worldbuilding that I really enjoyed! The writing style is strong and you could really feel the personalities of the characters in the way they were written, especially Venus as she is the one we follow throughout the book.

I adored the story behind the witchers in this universe and all the different types of love potions, it really isn't like anything I have read before. I would happily read something else set in this world!

Only a couple of minor nitpicks to mention that stopped this from getting a higher rating (but definitely aren't massive problems in the grand scheme of things) - I did have some trouble remembering who some characters were as the pacing felt off at times, but that definitely could have just been a me problem.

I also felt a bit lost with some of the terminology - there is a glossary at the back of the book, but as I was reading an eBook I didn't know this until it was too late. Highly recommend using it if you decide to read this book!

Overall this was a wonderful experience, especially for a debut, that I would definitely recommend to others. I look forward to seeing what the author does next!

I'm absolutely loving the current influx of writers of colour, telling their stories with all the fierceness and magic that has been largely missing from bookshelves in the past.

This is a heartfelt tale of family and magic, with allegories of racism and discrimination that are handled exceptionally well. It feels determined rather than heavy-handed, and the protagonists react and manage their situations as well as can be expected; we feel for them with every challenge they must face. It reminded me of when I first saw the X-Men cartoons: no matter how it appears, hate is something to be fought against, as personal power is reclaimed. The author shows the battles that must be fought within a magical context, and the messages are clear and proud, completely engaging from the first pages. I also had to smile at the backhanded nods to 'real world' discrimination (the 'WASP' acronym being reclaimed in particular!).

I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience here (white middle-aged British woman!), but I'm absolutely recommending this book. My niece - an amazing young woman of colour - openly challenged her English teacher as to why they didn't study books that featured people like her. This would be a fine addition to any curriculum or library, as I've no doubt that while traditional teachers would approve of the writing quality, smart young readers will hold it close to their hearts for the story and characters.

Thankyou, Bethany Baptiste.

Formatting of the ARC made it difficult to read with massive gaps and spaces. It made it less accessible to read due to the spacing issues therefore it took much longer to read than normal. Other than that it was an appealing story with an engaging writing style. But the formatting made it very difficult to read and I can't get past that. I'm sure the physical book is fine but in the future the formatting of your digital books is just as important as the content.

This book should be read just for the fact alone that the premise is so unique and the world building is phenomenal, how on earth can someone give us something so solid as a debut? Bethany Baptiste, I am so excited about what you have to give to the world, I am now a fan and follower.
The characters are all very realistic and the family and friendship/relationship dynamics are very relatable. I particularly enjoyed the sisters bond. But back to the world building, the whole witch world serves as a metaphor about what the world feels like today, especially in the USA, especially for people of colour and other social groups, who find themselves under threat and living with fear. this is brought brilliantly to life. the wikipedia type entries at the beginning of each chapter are amazing and add to the effect. there isn't a detali that has not been considered and I was happy to overlook the bits that didn't feel super convincing because overall the story delivers in spades.

Venus is a fantastic main character and her character development and everything so goes through made me very invested in finding out how the story unfolds.

A very easy and solid recommendation from me, thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy, all opinions are my own.

*thanks, netgalley, for the arc*

If you grew up watching movies like practical magic or a TV show like Buffy, you might just love this book.

You follow Venus, a young brewer of potion navigating the aftermath of her parent violent death. In a world where witcher are frowned upon and treated like low life, being stripped of all human rights little by little.

It's a book full of rage but also full of love. The dichotomy between love and rage works, so complete each other.

Venus is a complex main character. She's literally full of rage, anger, and kind of want to murder people, and for that, we have to stan this Bisexual queen.

I have some issues with the pacing, I found the first 35% kind of slow and hard to get through, but once we got past this point, everything worked better for me !

It can be read as a standalone, but I wouldn't say no for more time with the characters!!

This was a chonker of a read so I thought it's be slow, it would be repetitive but boi, was I wrong! It was so good. It didn't feel slow at all. I started reading it and before I knew it, it went from light, to dark, to light again. Time really flew by when reading this, that's how much I loved it. The only question I have is, how do I read for this for the first time all over again?

I rather enjoyed this book it had good pacing, an entertaining plot a beautifully written and immersive world in which to dive into, there are a lot of characters but each is necessary in the story in their own way
I found the main character to be likeable and not overly worked to the point you get bored she was intriguing with a genuine liability

Genuinely a little terrified but otherwise feeling a tad bit underwhelmed. I would have given this book 4 stars if it had not ended that way.

DNF @ 22%

The premise of the book is extremely interesting, and I was so happy to receive the eARC, but I think the DNF is a case of "It's me, not you" because you need to be in a very specific mood to enjoy the book as it's extremely angry. While Venus' anger never feels very deep, her sister's anger is by far more potent. They are angry at each other, at their mother but especially at the society that enforces laws that punish witchers. The book incorporates, among others, the following themes: police violence, racism, child abuse (emotional but also physical in a way due to the nature of brewing), child neglect (as Venus' and her sister are teenagers), a good amount of morality (e.g., giving someone unknowingly a love potion), discrimination, ... -- Overall, it is very angry and I have currently not the energy or the mind space to deal with such an angry setting at the moment.

However, three main issues are the reasons why I DNF'ed the book (the anger of the book is just the cherry on top):

1. The writing style.
It is very immature at times and the author uses extremely short sentences to highlight emotions. It feels choppy and unedited to read sentences that just consist of three or four words. In addition, some word choices were rather poor because they gave me the feeling of "I want to be special by using unique vocabulary" but it just renders it meaningless if it irritates the reader.

2. The pacing.
It is so off. By the time, I abandoned the book, nothing really happened that was relevant to the main plot line as far as I can tell. Yes, there are a few scenes where something happens (e.g., a shady deal for brewing a love potion, brewing the love potion, going to an aurora party) but the only major plot point that happened was the death of Venus' mother. The rest of the 22% are mostly world-building in a way but not to the depth that would excuse the lack of action. I have the feeling that the plot, which is mentioned in the book's summary, starts to happen between 40% - 50%, which is a shame. By the time when I'm 40% - 50% into a book, I want to be in the middle of the plot and not at the start of it.

3. The world-building and magic system.
It is so vague and superficial. While the entire story plays in an alternative version of the USA, I cannot tell you much about the witcher history or the magic system.
The world-building happens mostly through tidbits in the form of texts above each chapter, which I hate as a mechanism to introduce world-building because it never explains enough. The witcher vs. non-witcher conflict feels old and young at the same time as the book refers to events prior Venus' birth but also makes it sound as if the entire conflict is centuries old.
The magic system is just as vague. There are several types of magic mentioned (e.g., brewers, forgers, ...) and sometimes even sub-classes for each magic type (e.g., brewers have to focus on one type of potions) but that's it. By 22%, there was no mention of why iron hurts witchers. There's no explanation why brewers suffer from magical backlash or if witchers of other magic types have their own drawbacks.


To sum it up, it's the typical "them vs. us" story with magic as the dividing line that uses the question "What would you do in the situation?" as Venus will get caught up in a bad situation while she doesn't seem to be a bad character, but it just falls flat due to writing issues, the vague world-building & magic system, and the catastrophic pacing. It's also a very angry and political book but even the incorporation of the fitting themes for the politics fall short. I think it could have been a good book but it needs a few more rounds of editing to make it smoother and more cohesive.

I really enjoyed this. We start in a world thats very cosy and really gives practical magic vibes. And then layered over the top is a murder mystery, which keeps the plot and the book moving at a good pace. I felt the way the plot was paced made this book feel longer than it was, in a good way, that meant the story stays with you better and you felt like you got to spend more time in the world.
The world itself was very well crafted and in-depth which definitely added a deeper element and another level to the story. Its vivid and colourful and really adds to the story and the characters journey.
Speaking of the characters, they are a strong point here. The relationships with each and the character growth really allowed all the bonds of friendship, love and found family to be explored in depth, id happily spend more time with these characters and read further books about their adventures. The enemies and the plot surrounding those characters whose actions are less than desired is just as well fleshed out and led to an excellent dynamic between them and the protagonists.
Overall, a really good read, and explores some themes of politics and classicism and race alongside a good, well paced plot.

DNF @ 60%.
The story was too slow to my liking and I couldn't get into it. The plot was interesting and the beginning hooked me but at some point I just lost interest in the premise and had to stop. Might give it another go at another time.