Published in 2025
301 pages
Joy McCullough is an award-winning and NYT-bestselling author of books for kids and teens. Her YA novel Blood Water Paint won the Washington State Book Award and was long-listed for the National Book Award. Her picture book Champ & Major: First Dogs was a New York Times Bestseller. She is also a playwright, and lives with her family in the Seattle area.
What is this book about?
This historical novel in prose and verse tells the story of a deadly secret hiding in plain sight and of the women who risk everything to provide care for those with nowhere else to turn, perfect for fans of Blood Water Paint and The Lost Apothecary.
Early Seventeenth-Century Rome
For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be allowed behind the counter of her mother’s apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she turns sixteen, she’s finally allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother, Giulia Tofana, and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there’s another potion requiring darker ingredients. And then there’s Aqua Tofana, the apothecary’s remedy of last resort for husbands who are just as deadly as any disease. In all Carmela’s years of wishing to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she never realized one tiny vial could be the death of them all.
