The Tasters Guild (The Poisons of Caux, Book 2)
Susannah Appelbaum
Language: English
Pages: 168
ISBN: B0140EIJKY
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A macabre and funny fantasy trilogy.
After the perilous adventure of The Hollow Bettle (Book I), the dark reign of the Nightshades is over at last, and a new day has arrived in Caux, a land long ruled by poison and deceit. The ancient Prophecy-the coming of a Noble Child to cure the one, true King-has finally begun.
But fear still grips the people of Caux, for they live in the shadow of the powerful, poisonous Tasters' Guild. Sequestered high within its corrupt walls sits Vidal Verjouce, the Guild's diabolical Director, his dark magic more potent than ever. Eleven-year-old Ivy, famed healer and Noble Child, and her friend and taster Rowan must venture inside the Guild itself if they are to find the door to their sister world, Pimcaux-and fulfill the Prophecy. But a deadly weed-once thought extinct-threatens their journey: scourge bracken, a plant dedicated to domination and destruction, also known, ominously, as Kingmaker. Who else has detected it? And will Ivy's remarkable gift-her dominion over plants and nature-be enough to thwart it?
Susannah Appelbaum's imagination soars with poison inks, flower codes, catacombs, secret crypts, and sinister twists in this middle volume of the macabre and magical Poisons of Caux fantasy trilogy.
From School Library Journal
Gr 4-7–This second book in the trilogy continues 11-year-old Ivy's quest to fulfill her role as the prophesied “Noble Child” destined to cure her country's rightful king from a strange illness. In The Hollow Bettle (Knopf, 2009), Ivy defeated the evil monarch who usurped control of Caux from good King Verdigris and had a penchant for poisoning the unhappy population. Those with money hired food tasters trained by the secretive Tasters Guild to keep from becoming a victim. Ivy and her friend Rowan, an inept Guild-trained taster, were forced to run away after he failed to detect poison in his employer's food. Now they must save King Verdigris. Many of Verjouce's henchmen pursue them but Ivy's most persistent enemy is Sorrel Flux, her former taster, who keeps trying to kill her. When Ivy's exposed to a deadly weed that can transport its victims to a dark realm, she's not sure she can defeat it. This inventive story is full of strange and mysterious characters with peculiar names and viscerally descriptive locations. Kids are sure to love it.Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton
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seemed—I don’t know how this could be, but it seemed as if everything he passed withered and died.” Chapter Eight The Tapestries Rowan was being punished. He had been remanded to the palace for his part in the morning’s curing capers. He was to have no further contact with Ivy, who was similarly assigned to the Apothecary to complete her studies with Mrs. Pulch. Being punished at a palace had its benefits, Rowan was realizing. There were many places to entertain oneself, many treasures
awful thought for a while now, ever since Sorrel Flux had taunted her in Templar. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Ivy, you need to take this up with Axle. Or Clothilde. Or both.” They joined the trestleman in the brightly lit cafeteria. The room was alive with the usual buzzes and clinks, but Ivy and Rowan had never before seen a cafeteria such as this. First, the food came to you. Crump stopped abruptly beside a counter lined with metal stools and, after pressing a big red button, departed.
feathery, but growing ever more distinct. It emanated from the book in her hands and pointed—quite decisively—to the tunnel to the left. “Oh!” “Indeed.” Axle looked quite proud. “Shall we?” Peps asked in a tone that very much hoped they should not. “Yes,” Ivy agreed, gathering her wet robes around her with one hand and cradling the open Guide in the other. Thankfully, they heard no more of the gruesome screaming as they inched forward against all instinct. Having Axle’s map was a fortunate
literature, until his undoing), he would have seen a strange look pass over the trestleman’s face. But the Librarian was currently enjoying a dramatic pause before his challenge, and in this pause he congratulated himself upon the insoluble nature of his special riddle, one that he had carefully composed over his many lonely years. No one had ever before answered it. “Is that you—Malapert?” Axle asked, incredulously wiping away the grime from his pince-nez and replacing it. “You are alive!” The
and thereafter the house, swept past the flustered Rue, and soon enough, the scarlet-clad group found both Ivy and Rowan. They took the outlaw pair into swift custody. Chapter Sixty Arrivals It was with great expectation that Vidal Verjouce prepared his playground—the Guild and the city of Rocamadour—for the production of Dumbcane’s scourge-bracken inks. The Warming Room had been given over entirely to this new venture, and even the massive round firepit was not enough for the bed of