The most boring and basic story about a murderous, man-hating apothecary.

The Lost Apothecary, Sarah Penner

321 Pages, March 2, 2021

Park Row Books

Meh. Reading this novel felt like a chore: I couldn't stop putting this down it was that uninteresting. I read this book because it was endorsed by Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network. That novel is amazing, telling the story of unlikely and unsung heroes - female spies in Nazi controlled France - and everyone should read it. But sadly, this is nothing like Quinn’s work and doesn’t demonstrate the strength of women or their relationships as Quinn so adeptly does.

Hating men does not make a feminist. Every male character in The Lost Apothecary has some horrible aspect, mostly having to do with deceit, but also manipulation, lack of respect for women, or unapologetic infidelity. This is true of men we meet for just short periods of time as well, with the exception of book store owner Tom Pepper who we meet very briefly over the course of two pages. What happened to Sarah Penner to inspire such a universal picture of men in her world, with not one having any redemption?  (She even writes “sweaty, filthy scent of a man”). Even Bachelor Alf, who is presented as a “nice guy” local who takes Caroline for the mudlarking trip to start off the calamity of errors is chastised for omission of truth as he did not divulge that Gaynor is his daughter. Why should he be so up front about this?  I could maybe get on board with the everyone-has-a-secret theme if the men weren’t criticized for it while all the women were celebrated. And these are women actively killing men using poisons around 1790s London. Who has the moral high ground here?

This novel put me to sleep on three separate occasions, while holding the book in my hands. Not the page turner it is billed to be with plots of poisons, death and intrigue amidst a secret hideaway apothecary shop. Hastily connected together with a weird emphasis on the female monthly cycle, I was quite often pulled out of the story because the situations just didn’t seem at all plausible in reality. Caroline is a whiny, middle America thirty-something who could not be less interesting. She latches on to Gaynor whom she tracks down at the library, while the narration drones on and on about descriptive details that are meaningless. So in two days' time, Gaynor who Caroline thrusts herself on is supposed to be such a lovely friend that she gets sandwiches and defends Caroline in front of police. Like what!? They are basically strangers. The weird police sub plot meant to parallel with the police “investigation” into who may be responsible for poisoning the well-known Lord Clarence and other fateful deaths around the city does not play out with any sort of reality at all. It is barely explored and more like a side bar instead of a decently critical event in the story. Even small unnecessary details aren't realistic and suck readers out of this fictional place - such as the flowers wilting after just two days time in the hotel room. We don't even need to know about this Sarah, but it gives away your inconsistencies.

There are so many other ways to tell this story. Leaving Caroline out of it would have improved it ten fold. Staying in 1700s London with just Nella narrating, perhaps, would be much more interesting as would more details and time spent on the police activity leading up to the death of a character and even to convey actual worry over Nella's wellbeing. Eliza’s entire character seems very pointless - the apothecary could have been suspected and impacted just the same without a silly 12 year old who is portrayed both younger and older than actual stated. It’s distracting and quite annoying. Oh, and let’s not leave out her quick dabble into “magick” where she immediately becomes an expert because she is able to craft a special potion to “reverse bad fortune” after finding a book. And because we focus on this silliness, the ending is quite predictable.

Penner also makes too many parallels amongst her characters where it becomes not so clever as it is noticeably amateur. She overdoes it and lacks the subtly necessary for a plot twist to truly have an effect. The constant switching - too soon each time - to different character narration prevented any real connection to them. They are lost in all the interruptions. Due to her attempt to be so clever and witty, I audibly sighed when there were was a reference to Fleet Street in 1780s and 1790s London with a listing of the types of shops they walked by and there was no reference to a barber shop {Sweeney Todd for those not familiar - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street}. If the novel is meant to be macabre in some way, a nod so easily teed up would have put me more in Penner’s corner. Missed opportunity!

For those interested in apothecaries and witchcraft, skip this in favor of Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young. It’s not a top-of-the-book-club list by any means, but it has intrigue and flawed characters readers can get behind. It also has the switching narration for varied points of view that Penner uses which makes for a more suspenseful read.