Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Lost Apothecary

The synopsis for this book sounded right up my street. I am a history graduate who adores historical fiction with a strong female lead. The plot sounded very badass and feminist, which made me very excited to pick this up. I had also already seen a lot of buzz on bookstagram - and the cover is absolutely gorgeous.

The Lost Apothecary blends historical and contemporary fiction together very well. I really enjoyed the parallels between the stories from the 1790s and those happening in the modern day. I thought the chapters ran alongside each other nicely and this was a clever way of further delving into the history behind Caroline’s discoveries.

I may be biased, but my love of history meant I very much preferred the chapters set in the 1790s. The young but strong-willed Eliza was my favourite of the three main characters but I also enjoyed uncovering Nella’s dark backstory. I think I struggled to connect with Caroline’s character the most.

One of my pet peeves in suspense writing is those glaringly-obvious foreshadowing sentences. It feels like such an easy and predictable (almost lazy - but I’m not sure if that word is too harsh) method of creating suspense. There were plenty of these in the beginning of the book, but I was glad to see that they stopped early on.

I also must confess that it infuriated me how easy Caroline’s research into the lost apothecary seemed to be. Everything fell into place really easily for her which, as a history grad, I know is not common at all. It was too neat and not very realistic.

I was initially frustrated that one of the three main characters does not have her story tied up with an ending. However, I do understand that this contributes to the larger message that this book was trying to portray. It is the reality of the histories of ‘unimportant’ everyday women. Most of the past we study was documented by men (for a number of reasons), and I liked that the book highlighted this and the potential fascinating histories that we may be missing out on.

Overall, I think this was a good debut novel. I think I did expect more from this book but I wasn’t entirely let down. It piqued my interest enough to consider picking up future books written by Sarah Penner, which I have no doubt will improve on the negative aspects of this one.

Content Warnings