Poison Priestess (Lady Slayers)

Book 2 in the Lady Slayers series, about French murderess and fortune teller Catherine Monvoisin

In 17th-century Paris, 19-year-old Catherine Monvoisin is a well-heeled jeweller's wife with a peculiar taste for the arcane. She lives a comfortable life, far removed from a childhood of abject destitution—until her kind spendthrift of a husband lands them both in debt. Hell-bent on avoiding a return to poverty, Catherine must rely on her prophetic visions and the grimoire gifted to her by a talented diviner to reinvent herself as a sorceress.

With the help of the grifter Marie Bosse, Catherine divines fortunes in the Ile de la Cité—home to sorcerers and scoundrels. There she encounters the Marquise de Montespan, a stunning noblewoman. When the Marquise becomes Louis XIV's royal mistress with Catherine's help, her ascension catapults Catherine to notoriety.

Catherine takes easily to her glittering new life as the Sorceress La Voisin, pitting the depraved noblesse against one another to her advantage. The stakes soar ever higher when her path crosses with that of a young magician. A charged rivalry between sorceress and magician leads to Black Masses, tangled deceptions, and grisly murder—and sets Catherine on a collision course that threatens her own life.

Poison Priestess delves into the intriguing and dark journey of a woman who will stop at nothing to stay in the glittering life she has found herself in, even if it means risking everything.