By Sarah Penner
“To me, the allure of history lay in the minutiae of life long ago, the untold secrets of ordinary people.”
The Lost Apothecary
All right-I need to preface this review with the following: I read this book last year, but am reviewing it to make sure the blog has some content at the beginning. There isn’t going to be too much of a summary of the plot since I read a library book and don’t have it for reference anymore.
Now that that’s settled…
Summary
The Lost Apothecary is a historical fiction novel of sorts. A portion of the book is based in modern day London, while the rest is based a few centuries before. The book follows 2021 Caroline, alone on her 10th wedding anniversary. She and her husband are having some problems. While roaming the streets she comes upon a group of people going mudlarking. (Mudlarking is where you go down to a river at low tide and look for very old objects that had been discarded in the river long ago.) While with this group, Caroline finds a small apothecary bottle with the image of a bear etched onto it. This prompts Caroline to channel her inner historian to learn the history of the bottle and why it was thrown into the river.
200+ years earlier, Nella uses her knowledge of herbs to create potions specifically for women. She has two rules with these potions…1) the potion must never be used to harm another woman, and 2) both the murderer and victims names must be written in her ledger. For years, Nella has flown below the radar of Scotland Yard-but a chance encounter with a 12 year old girl puts everything in jeopardy.
My Thoughts
Plot
Ok, so I LOVED this book! The format of the plot is not particularly new. The dual time period books are very Fiona Davis. However, I really appreciate that the two main characters are not related, and how the story in the past does not directly affect the story in the future-meaning the outcome of one is not dependent on the other. I also loved the idea of a murderous woman apothecary. At that time, women apothecaries were not looked upon well. And an apothecary that catered predominantly to abused women was just so interesting. I was engaged the entire time!
Format
I listened to it as an audiobook, which I normally only do on my commute, but I just couldn’t stop. I think I finished this book in like 2 days. Like normal, I did read it on a faster speed, but that had nothing to do with the narration.
I loved the distinct voices of the different characters. In some audiobooks it is not always clear when different characters are speaking-especially if each chapter is in a different characters voice. But in this book, I could easily follow which time period we were in and who was talking just by the timbre of the voice.
I did buy this book in print recently, and I’m considering reading it again. I expect I will love it just as much.
Writing
Like I’ve said in other places in this review, I was thoroughly engaged in the entire book. I kept going because I wanted to know what happened next. As someone with a history background, I appreciated a lot of the references-but those references were not so obscure that people without the background would be lost.
One of my favorite parts of the writing was the different voices. Not only did the narrator do a great job, but the author also. Even just the way each character formed ideas and sentences made them so distinct. This is a skill many writers lack since they write with their own voice.
Characters
Caroline-I loved Carolines development throughout this book. She started out so miserable and really grew into herself through her adventure. She had so much strength and passion, that I was always rooting for her!
Nella-What can be said about the murderous apothecary other than I so related to this woman on so many levels. She was almost like a feminist locked in the late 1700s, supporting women who were in awful situations and putting herself at risk in the process. As we move through the story, it becomes clear that there is a reason for Nella’s behavior. But regardless of that, I never saw her as a villain or even as a bad person. I think that is what makes Nella’s character so unique, and it brings up an interesting conundrum. If good people do bad things for good reasons, are they actually a bad person?
Eliza-Eliza is an interesting character in that she was almost not a character. If things had not gone wrong, Eliza would have just been another name in Nella’s register. But since things obviously did go wrong, Eliza becomes the downfall of everything. But she has such a good soul-and while it’s the situations that make everything difficult for her, it’s how she handles them that make her a compelling character
Final Conclusions
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 4 stars.
Jenn V. Reads 