In the soot-streaked alleys of 19th-century London, Minha is a girl unlike any other - born with an extraordinary gift: an overwhelming, all-consuming sense of taste.
Desperate to escape a life of poverty, she crosses the sea to France, chasing the shimmer of a better future.
At Chateau de Bellefalaise, a grand estate with fairytale turrets perched above a sleepy village, Minha's talent is discovered when she detects poison in a dish about to be served to the chateau's master, Duc Nicolas. For the first time in her life, her strange ability becomes her salvation - and her curse. Appointed the Duc's personal poison-taster, she is confined to her tasting room and forced to live in the chateau's shadows.
With each dish, she enters a world of glittering porcelain and gilded secrets, where danger simmers beneath every course...
But when she loses her miraculous gift and suspicion coils through the corridors, Minha must confront a terrifying truth: without her gift, who is she - and what remains of the life she's fought so hard to build?
