The Lost Apothecary

Author: Sarah Penner

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐(2.75)

Genres: Historical fiction, mystery, adult

TW: (As answered by the author!) infidelity, divorce ideation, bodily effects of poisoning, blood, recall of a past miscarriage, brief predatory behavior against an adolescent, brief suicide ideation

Read this because it was nominated in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Historical Fiction and Debut Novel.

However, overall I found this just ehhhhhh. We follow three different perspectives, Eliza, Nella, and Caroline. Caroline is from modern day while Eliza and Nella are from the past.

I keep forgetting that Eliza is 12, and always get a shock when the author reminds us of her age because she reads older than that??

Apart from a spoiler that I will mention later on which was completely unnecessary.

Caroline's perspective, in my opinion, was also completely unnecessary. Why introduce a modern day perspective who tries to uncover the mystery behind what had happened when we can just look at it in the historical context itself? None of the characters were fleshed out to me, and I wasn't particularly involved in the mystery as well.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Eliza got her first period, and she understood that as the ghost of the Lord who died to be haunting her??? That was so weird, and completely unnecessary. If the author's point in including this was to show how naive Eliza was, then I guess she did do that, but other ways could have been done.

The ending of the book also felt very unsatisfying for me. I enjoyed Caroline's chapters the least, and there could have been exciting events that took place in her chapters that I did not take notice of because I really couldn't bring it in me to care, but oh well.