Synopsis:
The Lost Apothecary is about a female apothecary that secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them – setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.
Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.
One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. 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. 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.
In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. 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. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate – and not everyone will survive.
Review:
One day I will learn to not pick up a book because it has a beautiful cover because it’s coming back to bite me more and more these days. Hello and welcome to my first DNF review of 2025.
Oh boy where do I start? There were so many things I hated about The Lost Apothecary, the first being how dull this book is. I didn’t even get halfway through before deciding that this was not the book for me. I really thought a book about a woman dispensing poisons to kill bad men would be intense and entertaining, but no, boring.
Please tell me I’m not the only one that found it unbelievably annoying when Caroline’s narrator would switch from a British accent for descriptions and an American accent for Caroline’s dialogue. What a strange choice to make. Why not just read everything with an American accent unless the character is from somewhere else? It was so jarring and took all immersion out of the story.
Also why is there so much talk of pregnancy? Does the author really think that’s all women care about? Almost every single woman you meet in this book is obsessed with having a baby, even the ones whose husbands are cheating on them. It’s positively ridiculous. I can almost forgive the women in 1791 feeling this way, but this is a fiction book, you don’t need to write women that way. Please stop writing women this way.
Another laughable moment is Caroline deciding to not get a masters degree because she got engaged. Apparently women can be educated or a wife, but under no circumstances can they be both. Also, postgraduate study doesn’t exist in the US according to this author. Caroline decides to not get a masters as her fiancée wants them to stay in the states and we all know America doesn’t have any universities. I legit thought this character was in 1971 as well, which would have made the reason for her dropping her education to get married more believable. But no, this is a modern woman.
I’m going to leave this review here as it could start to get a little too ranty and mean. I’ll leave you with one final statement – this was potentially one of the most boring books I’ve ever attempted to read.
Check out Young Creative Press on all socials
You can also check out my StoryGraph here
Like this post? Why not read this one too: Book Confessions: I’ll Never Outgrow YA Books