The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood: book review

The Poison Diaries (2010) is a young adult’s novel set in 18th century England. It was inspired by Jane, the Duchess of Northumberland of Alnwick Castle, who has a great knowledge of poisons and also creates tourist-attraction gardens. Hence this novel is set in Hulne Abbey gardens and cottage, a rundown former chapel on the Duke of Northumberland’s rambling property near Alnwick.

The narrator is 16-year-old Jessamine Luxton who keeps a garden diary – in the novel excerpts of the diary set the introduction (about a quarter to half a page) for each chapter.

Jessamine’s mother died when she was four years old, and she lives with her father, Thomas Luxton, the local apothecary – a ‘plantsman’ and ‘humble gardener.’ From his plants he makes ‘tinctures and tisanes, oils and ointments, smudge pots and poultices’ for treatments and cures. He often spends hours in the castle library searching for ancient books written by medieval monks who knew how to heal the sick, but he can’t find them.

In one part of the Luxton’s garden is a locked section, called the apothecary garden, that contains poisonous plants. Jessamine is forbidden to enter. She is beginning to learn some of the practices of her father as she tends to the seeds of the poisonous belladonna plant.

The owner of Pratt’s Convalescent Home for the ‘mentally unhinged’ – Tobias Pratt – comes visiting with a young boy tied to his horse. This unpaid servant, known as Weed, put something in the tea for the patients – and cured them. The patients turned from ‘gibbering maniacs’ to ‘as docile as doves’ – which displeases Pratt, a scoundrel who wants to make money from his patients. Pratt therefore wants to give away this boy, and thought Luxton could use him because he seems to know a lot about plants.

Weed, about Jessamine’s age, does indeed have a lot of mysterious knowledge about plants. The orphan used to live with Friar Bartholomew, until the friar’s recent death. Luxton wants Weed to look at the apothecary garden to advise him on how to use the poisonous plants to heal people, but Weed is afraid of the garden because, to him, ‘it stinks of death.’ In nature, poisonous plants are ‘scattered over the continents, separated by oceans. But your father has … locked them together, side by side …’, he tells Jessamine. Weed helps cure Luxton’s next patient, but he is unwilling to part with his secrets.

With the help of Jessamine, who is falling in love with Weed – the youth with ‘a moss-green stare’ agrees to go into the apothecary garden. It contains plants such as angel’s trumpet, hemlock, wormwood, white bryony, oleander, bittersweet, adder’s root, and mandrake – to name a few.

When Luxton goes to London, Jessamine and Weed are alone in the cottage. Thomas Luxton returns unexpectedly … and is not pleased with what he sees – from then on everything changes. Weed takes over writing the garden diaries – and goes into the apothecary garden alone.

The easy-to-read short novel is interesting until the consequences of the teenagers being home alone are revealed. For me, the plot falls apart and the ending becomes unbelievably silly. However, if readers are fans of Harry Potter movies, they will know that the garden scences of J.K. Rowling’s novels are filmed in the area – and they may just love the teen fantasy with love, death, and deceit (kind of like William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet). The quality of writing is neither Rowling nor Shakespeare, but it’s a fast read – it will while-away a couple of hours.