A review by mir_i_am
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

4.0

At first, I thought this was a simple, “it’s been done before” story, and I was bummed out. However, there’s more here than meets the eye! There are three protagonists and the point of view switches between them. The present day main character, Caroline, was who I had the biggest issue with in the beginning, because I thought I had predicted her story arc. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I definitely wasn’t correct in my predictions, and what actually happens with her makes the story SO much better than I thought it would be. The other two MCs exist in the 1700s, and their stories are compelling right from the beginning. I will say that I can tell this is a debut novel. The writing has moments of brilliance but there’s also a lot of telling rather than showing. I’m also not sure that the “fantasy” tag is accurate for this book; I for one am going to switch this to my “fabulism” shelf. There are some very small hints of magick [sic] but mostly this is a great, plausible read that has more actual science in it than magick. Overall, I found myself feeling victorious and powerful by the end of reading this, and I recommend it!