Today, Caroline finds herself alone in what should have been her anniversary trip to London. She bumps into a group mudlarking along the Thames, and then happens upon a strange old vial washed up in the mud. This leads her to researching the vial, and discovering more about an old and possibly forgotten apothecary.
This was an intriguing story, with conflict and discovery in both storylines. There were a couple moments that strained credulity, mostly in the coincidences that set the plot in motion and one that gave me an extreme eye-roll (Really? Her notebook flipped open to that page at that exact moment? Sounds fake but ok). Individually, each coincidence works, but as they built up, I started to wonder if Caroline was the descendant of one of the apothecary women, and there was a supernatural force behind her just stumbling onto everything. Then again, the story of finding a cool old artifact and hitting a research dead-end would be a much shorter, less interesting story.
The two timelines connect thematically, with themes of women’s friendship against male-dominated life, although there aren’t direct parallels. Fans of The Dollhouse, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and other Fiona Davis novels will enjoy the dual-timeline narrative in The Lost Apothecary.
The Lost Apothecary will be out in March 2021 from Park Row Books. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
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This sounds pretty cool. It's like that lady in Renaissance Italy, she sold perfumes that were secretly poisons for ladies to use.
Whoa! I'd absolutely read about poison perfumery. So many possibilities for sneaky murder or accidental murder...