But if you don’t? Well, at least you know you’re not alone. I picked it up hoping I’d find a new author I enjoy. It has received many favorable reviews from the public and is the debut novel from Penner. My overall thought is that clearly many, MANY people loved this, so you may as well. Sarah Penner’s new book The Lost Apothecary is very new, appearing just last month. I’m super disappointed because I’d been excited about this for months before it even came out, had great reviews, and so of course… it did nothing for me. There were some little touches that connected the two timelines - a key word used twice, similar traumas - but… nothing I really cared about. The only difference as it stands is that you read three incredibly short and simple stories interwoven a little bit.

If you read each person’s story on its own, it would be incredibly short and simple. A lot of this came down to the characters themselves, whom I didn’t really like or care about. There was barely magic, and it wasn’t great when it did show up. Both main stories were entirely uncompelling. Which I did, many times, and only picked up again out of a general sense of obligation to see it through.ģ POVs in two timelines meant not one got a strong level of development. To turn a common phrase on its head, this book was entirely putdownable. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose-selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer.

Reviews of the lost apothecary