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So I read the book description on GoodReads (female apothecary in 1700s London, secretly dispensing poison to women so they can kill the men in their lives who’ve done them wrong!), I saw that book cover (few book covers are this gorgeous!), and I read the glowing reviews/heard all the hype around the book, and I was like SIGN ME UP!

Maybe I set my expectations too high. I don’t know. But this book left me underwhelmed and disappointed. I wanted a dark twisted tale of moral ambiguity, of “powerless�� women outsmarting men. I wanted a look at the place of women in the society in the Romantic Period in England. I wanted secrets, murder, scandal! I wanted a book comfortably placed in the morally gray area, with complex characters, with equally complex back stories. I wanted to feel conflicted, but intrigued��. Sadly, I was neither. I can forgive the author for not managing conflicted, but I can’t forgive her for not keeping me intrigued.

Once again, we have a book with dual timelines: 1790s London, and present day London. And once again, we have a book that fails to make both timelines equally interesting. I enjoyed the historical fiction part of the book a lot, almost to the end, when it took a nosedive, but the present day storyline was of no interest to me, mostly because the main character, Caroline, was vapid, and went through a long series of events one unlikelier than the next, to the point that my eyes started to hurt from my repeated exaggerated eye-rolls.

Honestly I wasn’t sure what the point of the present day storyline was. The book could have dropped that time period entirely, and focused on the historical fiction, spending more time with those characters, giving them more depth and making the storyline emotional and profound. Instead, the author tried to force a connection between the 1791 and present day characters, having their lives mirror each other in a way that was not only on the nose, but also forced and meaningless. It just felt like such lost opportunity��

The author had a very intriguing and original idea for the book, but unfortunately the execution lacked in many fronts. The plotting just didn’t make sense (more on this later), but also, the writing/editing was weak. For example, there was no distinct difference between voices/speech patterns of the characters in 1791 and present day, or between the British characters and the American ones.

There was also clearly nowhere near enough research that went into the subject matter, and I don’t mean the apothecary and her medicines and recipes. That part may have been researched well. I don’t know enough about that topic to have an opinion. But the present day portion of the book is about a history major American woman, Caroline, in London, doing research of historical archives to find a needle in a haystack. I’m no historian, neither do I have extended experience with academic research, but even I know enough to know there is more to it than a google search, and opening a British Library browser on a computer screen, spending 5 min, and literally finding the answer to every single question you may have, uncovering the most fantastical and unexpected historical facts! I felt like I was reading the author’s fantasies, and not the story of remotely plausible events. This author, and sadly her editor, appear to know absolutely NOTHING about academic research, and honestly, this book was a bit of a slap in the face of anyone who dedicates any substantial amount of their time to academia.

I’d like to get my thoughts down on the plot, so spoilers ahead:

The historical timeline starts off very intriguing, and the characters of Nela and Eliza were interesting. I was invested in the fate of the apothecary, and the 12-year-old girl who thinks she is haunted by ghosts and is in need of magick to save herself. It was fascinating to read about Nela and all her extensive knowledge of natural remedies and poisons, and her ability to concoct the right poison for the right occasion...

But throughout the novel, the idea that Nela insisted on keeping a detailed record of every customer and the dates they visited her and the poison they bought and their intended victims, because she CARED about her customers really annoyed me. Her reasoning behind her keeping incriminating records of her customers, all the way to the bitter end, was nonsense, and contradictory, because I just don’t understand how someone so intelligent could be so illogical. She had supposedly dedicated her life to service to women, and yet she refused to destroy the evidence that if discovered resulted in every one of those women being hung?! I understand that the author really needed her register to survive until present day, or else her plot wouldn’t work, but she should have come up with better reasoning, perhaps call it what it was? An insurance policy? Or perhaps plot the story in a way that Nela in her last hours of desperation decided to destroy the register, and yet, unbeknownst to her, it survived? It’s just lazy plotting, when you decide to write something that neither makes any logical sense, nor goes with the characteristics of your heroine, just because it is convenient to you?

But regardless of this, I still found the historical fiction story quite engaging, until the very end. You see, I had thought that at its core, this story is about the skill, knowledge, passion and wit of independent women, and about the giving powers of Mother Nature, if you just know where to look. I thought considering that we are talking about the late 1700s, this would be a story about the beauty of science and how it can come to our aid, outsmart our adversaries and even save us. So when the ending took a very sharp turn towards “magick�� being the only thing that can save those who couldn’t be saved, ummm, yea, that was the nosedive for me. It left me incredibly disappointed and quite shocked. Not that I don’t love me some magic, but this book was not the place for it. It came out of the left field and in a way, negated everything else we had seen and loved. Once again, it appeared to be a random trick pulled out of the hat for ease of plotting, used because it would get the author out of a tough spot.

The present day plot did not interest me. I never connected to the main character, and didn’t have much patience for her plotline because the entire thing was much too convenient. It was the story of an American tourist in London unearthing a complex series of never-solved crimes from almost 220 years ago in a matter of a week by visiting the British Library a couple of times. The sheer number of lucky accidents were mind boggling. The ease and convenience of everything just lining up perfectly for her, things being found exactly in the very first place she thought to look�� I mean my God, was this ever stupid! Caroline’s historical research was laughable. Her immediate and close friendship with a librarian who went from showing her a map to being her BFF rushing to a hospital to meet her, in exactly 2 days was contrived, her Sherlock Holmes instinct in discovering a cellar which hadn’t been found or touched during two World Wars and several rounds of heavy rebuild of this large and ever changing city was more than a little implausible.

But honestly, the thing that bothered me the most was the Cambridge Masters program. We are meant to understand that the reason she didn’t go to Cambridge 10 years ago was because she decided to throw away her application form. And now, we have her apply to Cambridge one night, and then look into student housing the following morning. I mean last time I checked Cambridge was a prestigious school, one of the very best in the world. So please do explain to me, why is it that applying is automatically equal to admission? You don’t just apply and move to England! You have to actually get in! And last I checked your Bachelors was in history (what kinda history, of what part of the world, or what era was never mentioned), and you’re applying for a Masters in English Literature (completely unrelated to your past education), and you’re an admin assistant on a farm (so your work experience is also unrelated)! So please pray tell, why are you so absolutely confident that you’re staying in England and getting a graduate degree from one of the best universities in the world?

Lastly, Caroline, supposedly a history major/historian wannabe, destroying an item of historical significance and a large piece of her murder mystery puzzle (throwing the vial into the river) was the final straw for me. This is not only irresponsible and stupid, but also something a historian would never do, as they would recognize that history doesn’t just belong to them. It belongs to all and is meant to be shared�� But also, I failed to see how this move was helpful. Similar to most of what she did throughout the story, very little made sense.

Overall a very promising premise executed poorly. In the hands of a better author, this story could have been something great. Here, it ended up being a letdown.

2.5 Stars.