Title: The Lost Apothecary
Author: Sarah Penner
Publisher: Park Row Books
Genre: Historical Fantasy
First, can we talk about the elephant in the room!? Holy gorgeous cover! Whoever designed this one is a GENIUS!!!
When I read the synopsis of The Lost Apothecary is gave me Addie LaRue vibes. While it wasn’t quite what I was thinking, it was still a pretty good book in it’s own right.
The Lost Apothecary is a dual timeline, but here’s where it gets a little different than other books and maybe a little tricky . . . it’s three character/narrators. In 1791 we have Nella and Eliza and in present day, Caroline.
Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to the unusual clientele. Women all across the city secretly meet with Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against oppressive men in their lives. Then we have Eliza, a precocious twelve year old who stumbles into Nella’s shop. They unexpectedly bond sparking a string of consequences that echoes throughout the centuries.
Two hundred years later, Caroline finds herself on her anniversary trip to London solo because of her cheating husband. As she tries to figure out what she wants from her marriage and herself, after putting her career on hold, she stumbles upon a mudlarking trip. On it, she discovers an aged apothecary vial and it’s the exact research project she needs to distract herself from her husband and possibly find her way back to her historian ways she originally went to school for.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Normally with historically books I really love the dual timeline. But with this one I found myself much more interested in the historical one and I didn’t very much care about Caroline. Oh well. So for me a lot of things worked, some did not. This was a good story premise, I was just hoping for more on the execution of it.
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