THE POISONER by I.V. Ophelia: A Book Review

The Poisoner is I.V. Ophelia’s debut novel and the first book in what promises to be a darkly seductive trilogy. It is slow, atmospheric, spicy and gothic.

About the Author

I.V. Ophelia is a pen name with a deliberately shadowy public profile. She began writing online in 2014 as a fan fiction author within the SuperWhoLock community (Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock fandoms). She honed her voice across years of that kind of writing: character-driven, emotionally intense, often dark. She is also an internationally award-winning photographer.

The Poisoner was published by Simon & Schuster under their Simon Maverick imprint in January 2026, and became a USA Today instant bestseller. It is the first book in the Poisoner trilogy, followed by The Arachnid and the forthcoming The Cannibal.

Synopsis

London, late 1800s. Alina Lis keeps a respectable shop and an unrespectable secret: she has been quietly ridding the city of men whom she believes deserve it. Her method of choice, botanical. 

Enter Silas Forbes. He is wealthy, charming, and exactly the kind of man she has no patience for. The problem is that he does not die. 

What follows is part cat-and-mouse, part slow-burn gothic romance. Two people with reasons to distrust each other, drawn together by a city full of shadows and a connection neither of them asked for.

My Review

I went into The Poisoner with no expectations; it was an almost impulsive hold on my Libby account, but I came out wanting the second book. 

There is a strand of criticism you will find consistently in reviews of this book: that it is too slow, that not enough happens, that the pacing drags. But, to me, the slower pace was refreshing. I.V. Ophelia is building something: a mood, a relationship, a world. She does not rush us through it, and I appreciated that.

A great deal of what gets labelled as “romantasy” or “spicy fiction” is, to be blunt, not especially well-written. The pace is fast because the prose cannot sustain attention at a slower speed. The Poisoner is different. The writing is elegant. It has restraint, atmosphere.

Reading it via audiobook, narrated as a duet by Matt Sykes and Stephanie Willis, was great. Their performances were excellent, and the dual narration suited the push-pull dynamic of the story perfectly.

The book ends on a cliffhanger. The FMC lead leaves. And you know, with complete certainty, that the MMC is going to follow her. I found myself looking up The Arachnid before I had even finished the final chapter.

What I Liked/What I didn’t

What I Liked

The narration. Matt Sykes and Stephanie Willis are both exceptional, and together they give the story a texture that I think would be harder to find on the page alone. If you are on the fence about format, go with the audiobook.

The writing itself. It’s elegant, measured, and atmospheric. For a book that sits in the dark romance space, it has literary ambition.

The pacing. I know this is controversial, but the slow build earned the ending. I cared about the characters because I had spent real time with them.

What I Didn’t

If you are impatient with slow-burn stories, you will struggle with this one. Know thyself before you pick it up.

The cliffhanger, while effective, does mean The Poisoner functions more as the opening act of a trilogy than a fully self-contained story. I wanted a little more resolution before the curtain dropped.

Final Verdict

The Poisoner is one of the more pleasantly surprising reads I have had this year. It is dark, it is carefully written, and it treats its reader as someone capable of sitting with atmosphere and tension without needing a plot point every ten pages. I am looking forward to seeing what the writer does with The Arachnid.

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