This Wicked Fate

About This Wicked Fate

This Wicked Fate is the second volume in Kalynn Bayron's This Poison Heart duology, concluding the story of Briseis, a sixteen-year-old Black girl who can grow any plant from seed and who discovers, in the first book, that her gift is the beginning of something far older and more dangerous than she understood. Here, Briseis must navigate the consequences of the revelations that closed This Poison Heart—including the truth about her family's ancient connection to the Poison Heart itself—while facing forces determined to claim that power for themselves. Bayron draws on Greek mythology and Black American Southern Gothic traditions to build a magic system that is both distinctive and emotionally resonant. The Poison Heart magic is intimate: it lives in Briseis's body, in her blood and her touch, and the rules governing it are as personal as they are cosmological. Learning to master and understand that system is not merely a plot beat—it is the substance of Briseis's coming-of-age journey. Her growth in this volume feels genuinely earned, moving from terrified discovery to something approaching ownership of her own power. The coming-of-age dimension is handled with particular care when it comes to Briseis's relationship with her adoptive mothers and her birth family's complicated legacy. Questions of lineage, chosen family, and what we owe to the people who came before us give the plot emotional texture beyond the magical stakes. Bayron writes family with warmth and specificity—these are characters whose love for each other feels real and hard-won. This Wicked Fate resolves the duology's central mysteries with clarity and emotional satisfaction, and does so without sacrificing the atmosphere and specificity that made the first volume stand out. For readers of Roshani Chokshi, Ayana Gray, or anyone looking for a Black girl-centered fantasy with genuine heart, this duology is an essential recommendation.

Tropes & Themes