'They will forget that we are flesh-and-blood women who have lived, and who now die, at the mercy of those who judge us.'

Palermo 1632: Giulia is thirteen years old when she learns her mother Teofania's greatest secret. Her mother knows how to brew an undetectable lethal poison, which she uses to free the broken and abused women of Palermo. Now Teofania wants to pass her recipe on to her daughter, and Giulia soon learns that, in a time when women have no voice, justice is sometimes best served in a cup of wine.

Rome, 1659: Years later, Giulia ends up alone and poor in Rome. Within the alleys and shadows of the Eternal City, she forms her own circle of female poisoners, who work together under the guise of an apothecary to sell poison to women in need.

But even in a time of Plague, when death looms over the city, it does not go unnoticed that the men of Rome are starting to fall like flies. And with the newly elected Pope determined to rid the city of witches and heretics, Giulia is in more danger than ever. How far is she willing to go to continue her mother's legacy?