The Testers

The Testers: What the Poison Remembers
By Gene Scott
Poison has always been a currency of power. The ones who taste it-before others sip-carry the cost.
In 1521, Thomas Tester serves as a royal poison-taster in the court of Henry VIII. Raised by a Welsh herbalist grandmother and trained to detect what others cannot, Thomas walks the tightrope between survival and sacrifice. When an attempt on the king's life implicates his family, Thomas must decide how far he'll go to protect his son from a system that values power over truth-and knowledge only when it can be controlled.
In 2025 Appalachian Tennessee, Dr. Grace Blackwood uncovers falsified pharmaceutical data that connects a wave of overdose deaths to a century-long pattern of exploitation. As whistleblowers vanish and her own life is threatened, Grace joins forces with Caleb Tester, a recovering addict and the last in a long line of healers trained to resist harm disguised as care. What they discover is a hidden ledger, a forgotten language, and a legacy of resistance buried beneath generations of silence.
Spanning five centuries and two continents, The Testers: What the Poison Remembers weaves together Tudor-era political intrigue, Appalachian folklore, and modern-day medical conspiracy. This gripping dual-timeline novel explores the secret histories that live in bloodlines, the unrecorded testimonies passed down through herbal recipes and whispered songs, and the quiet war waged by those who choose to protect rather than profit.
As the past and present converge, the line between healing and poison blurs-and those who carry memory become the last line of defense.
Perfect for readers who love the layered storytelling of The Poisonwood Bible, the haunting resistance of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and the atmospheric suspense of Where the Crawdads Sing, this novel is both a page-turner and a meditation on legacy, power, and the knowledge systems meant to be erased.
When systems forget who they've silenced, it's the ones who remember that become the most dangerous.