Blood to Poison

'A fiercely compelling, ferocious story' – Kiran Millwood Hargrave'Furious, beautiful, and impossible to put down' - Katherine WebberAn epic South African fantasy from award-winning author Mary Watson, for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and The Gilded Ones.Seventeen-year-old Savannah is cursed. It's a sinister family heirloom; passed down through the bloodline for hundreds of years, with one woman in every generation destined to die young. The family call them Hella’s girls, named for their ancestor Hella; the enslaved woman with whom it all began. Hella’s girls are always angry, especially in the months before they die. The anger is bursting from Savannah – at the men who cat-call her in the street, at her mother’s disingenuous fiancé, even at her own loving family. Each fit of rage is bringing her closer to the edge and now Savannah has to act to save herself. Or die trying. Because the key to survival lies in the underbelly of Cape Town, where the sinister veilwitches are waiting for just such a girl. Blood to Poison is a furious and mesmerising story about discovering magic, historical rage and love in all its guises.

A fiercely compelling, ferocious story full of fury and tenderness - a gorgeous read, Furious, beautiful, and impossible to put down, I read this book in one sitting. I literally couldn’t put it down! Watson builds an incredibly vivid world oozing with magic, excitement and danger. My heart didn’t stop racing until the very last word, I flew through this book. It’s a gripping exploration and vindication of anger, rooted in South African history... Read this one for witches, a family curse, falling for a childhood friends, girls both expressing and claiming their fury, and a magical Cape Town, Bold, visceral, and alive, from the hidden magic swirling under the everyday and mundane, to the slow unfolding of the depth of the curse and fight to break it … an absolute gut-punch of a novel

Mary Watson grew up in Cape Town during the apartheid years and did her Masters in Creative Writing with André Brink. She won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2006 and appeared on Hay Festival’s Africa39 list of influential writers. Mary now lives in Galway with her family. Blood to Poison is her third novel for young adults and the first rooted in her South African heritage.

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