A beautifully written account of lives interconnected by a simple blue vial found during a mud larking expedition. This story is as much about self discovery as it is about being a woman in different centuries. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy novels with multiple perspectives and rich historical details, in this case the life of an apothecary whose expertise is poison. The thrill of the story revolves around learning about people long gone through the eyes of the present-day narrator.

I was looking forward to reading this debut novel for months, so I couldn’t wait to jump right in! Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, so I have high expectations. The Lost Apothecary did not disappoint! I love a book with dual timelines because it helps make the past seem relevant to today. I enjoyed reading about both Nella and Caroline, but Nella’s story felt more compelling to me. I enjoy reading stories about women in general, especially stories that highlight some of the issues women faced or still do face. In this case, it’s interesting to think about what it must have been like for women who had few, if any, options to leave a bad situation. I also love that Sarah Penner was able to show us how history can come alive. Overall, I really like The Lost Apothecary and wholeheartedly recommend it!

The Lost Apothecary was a light, quick read. The lovely cover art and synopsis caught my attention as something that could be a really great. Unfortunately, while I liked it enough to finish it, I didn't love it and it fell into the chicklit/historical fiction category. I love historical fiction but it often falls into a chick lit cliché. I felt unsatisfied by the storytelling overall and story suffers from flat characters, depth and pacing issues for me.

The book follows two timelines: that of Caroline, in the modern day, who is having marital troubles, and that of the 18th century apothecareian: Nella whose world is turned upside down when Eliza shows up at her apothecary. Caroline goes to London to escape her husband, and gets involved with some historical research regarding an old apothecary. As the book progresses, she uncovers things about the apothecary as the historical timeline progresses along with it.

The main problem with this book is that I found the main character Caroline (and her husband James) to be incredibly dull, and that is just because the author spent no time exploring any of the characters in any significant depth. You could copy and paste her story for millions of women (which is probably the whole appeal) but leaves this experience women have in marriage feeling somewhat monolithic. You don't learn that much about her outside of her marital troubles which stem from the classics "I sacrificed my life for safety and security so now I feel unfulfilled trope". To be fair, I think a lot of readers will relate to that, but it's so overdone. The other characters are just as underdeveloped, and overall I couldn't connect with any of them, which is surprising given the theme of the book. I was pleased with the characters ending and I was invested in her education and choosing herself over her husband. But overall, the story was pretty predictable and did exactly what you expected it to based on the synopsis. I was only taken mildly by surprise at the end with the police questioning her (but then again, not, because of the parallelism).

My other issue is how heavy handed the author is with the feminist themes- and again, treats it in a monolithic fashion. She brings up bleeding wombs in just about every chapter somehow, and it's just not necessary and not very subtle. (That sounds harsh, but it was really overkill and felt like every feminist trope was way overly emphasized). Finally, her narrarrating her own character growth in the end in parallel to the Nella/Eliza storyline was also not necessary. You definitely make the connection without it needing it to be spelt out for you.

I really wished I liked this book more, but the execution was underwhelming. It was still entertaining but it could have been much more interesting based off the synopsis.

I so appreciate the chance to read books ahead of publication for my job and rarely give bad reviews of them. Maybe the book was fine and just not for me. I did put this on Goodreads though
"This just didn't hold up to all the hype for me. I had trouble with the main character in the 1700s because she really was helping kill people without too much examination of the reasons. AND I really didn't like the current times character who miraculously finds a vial after 5 minutes of mudlarking, finds an undiscovered building in the middle of London, links it all to documents in the British Museum.... I just didn't buy it."

Disclaimer: I got this in exchange for an honest review.

A female apothecary gives poison to free women covertly from men who have wronged them. There are only two rules: 1. Don't use it on another woman. 2. The names of the murderer and the victim must be on the apothecary's register. Nella, the apothecary is a ghost who want to help women who have been abused. But when she forms an unlikely friendship with a young girl named Eliza, the names on the register (the women) might be on the brink of getting exposed. This book jumps to present time where a historian named Caroline Parcewell is trying to uncover a 200 year old mystery. Three women's lives cross as Caroline discovered the secrets behind the apothecary murders! Okay, so I loved this book and this has a lot of twists! I liked the historical aspect of the book (which is always a hit or miss for me) and overall, I thought this was really good! I was a little confused in the beginning with the sudden jump to present-day but I really liked how it was written and by the end you won't be confused.

Who doesn't love parallel, converging storylines that transcend 200+ years? I sure do! The narrative goes back-and-forth from present-day to 1791 with POV from main characters Nella (the apothecary), Eliza (her 12-year-old unofficial protege), and Caroline (present-day, aspiring historian) in pivotal, intersecting moments of their lives. Caroline is in London, England for her 10th wedding anniversary...alone...because her husband's secret was revealed. In her short time in England, Caroline finds a mysterious bottle while mudlarking that links her to Nella and Eliza.

This is a wonderfully crafted novel. Sarah Penner was able to alternate POV and timeline in a wonderfully suspenseful way where at the end of each chapter, I was excited to learn what happens in the alternate and vice-versa. I would have loved to learn more about Nella's experiences (rather than her crossing the river for beetles) and Caroline's Nancy Drew-type excursions based on hunches from centuries-old evidence. Also, I would have loved more consequences from the climax with Caroline and her husband. Overall, I think this was a wonderfully fascinating historical fiction novel, packed with mystery, but also with the mundane of crushing beetles, for example. But I love a hopeful ending!

3.5, rounded up--I just wish there was a bit more suspense and details rather than summaries (in terms of the climaxes, we get more of the lead-up than the details of the climax...I don't want to give specifics because spoilers).

The Lost Apothecary follows two timelines: present day London, and London in the 1700s. Caroline Parcewell is on a vacation that was supposed to be her wedding anniversary celebration. After finding out her husband was unfaithful, Caroline decides to go to London anyways to process what’s happened. Nella Clavinger is an apothecary. She runs a secret business just for women who are looking for well-disguised poisons to help women deal with men they want gone. The story follows both women in their journey to discover themselves.

I loved the way this story was told. The alternating chapters between the two timelines fit so well together. The story was clever and filled with mystery and well-paced. The women in this book are strong and I loved how everything tied together in the end.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

I adored this book. Since this fall (Halloween through Christmas is my fav time of the year) I have been looking for a witchy book that gives me all the discovery of witches vibes.
I am very much a seasonal reader.
I love magic and witchcraft and scary books in the fall/winter. In the spring I start leaning back toward my literary genre and also sprinkle in more romance and women's lit towards the summer month.
This book is the perfect spring story with a hint of the magic I love to read in the fall (if that makes any sense, it does in my mind!.)
The Lost Apothecary jumps from present day to the past. We watch as Caroline, the modern character, discovers a small vile in the Thames with a crude bear etched onto it. As she begins her journey of uncovering the history behind that vile, we see the real time story from the 1791 unfold in parallel.
Eliza, a young and strong willed 12 year old, befriends a sickly female apothecary, Nina, who is known to sell poisons to help women vindicate unfaithful or ill tempered men. Eliza comes to be a sort of apprentice to Nina and these two ladies story is truly incredible. I could not read the pages fast enough.
I also have a huge fascination with herbal medicine. I think there are definitely secret powers within nature and the plans that surround us. This story bring a lot of that to light, and I was soaking it all up!
I truly thought the author was going to leave me in tears at the very end. I did not know if Eliza and Nina would make it or not. I can say, I was happy with how the book concluded if it was a little clean. I can't wait to discuss this story and hear what my book club members thought!

I just finished the lost apothecary and I really enjoyed it! While it looks like a fantasy novel, it’s really closer to historical fiction. That being said, the lost apothecary itself has a bit of a magical air to it. In the first half of the book I thought it was predictable and maybe a bit cheesy. It did end up being a bit predictable, but I was pleasantly surprised by a few little twists. This is an easy, quick read so it’s enjoyable for a lighter escape. I also enjoyed the theme of women supporting women and surprise friendships throughout the book.

WOW!! I read the description of this book and thought it sounded good I was not prepared for how good it would be.

Working on dual timelines we meet Nella a woman using her magic to help women who are in need. She mixes potions that help women who are abused to find freedom. She keeps track of her customers in a register by the cash register.

Carolins is a woman who on her 10th wedding anniversary finds out her husband is a cheater. On a trip to London, she discovers a link to the past.

Through some hard work, Carolina discovers information that could solve murders from the past.

This book was intense, magical, and captivating. Once I got started I could not put it down. Though I know murder is wrong I could help but here for Nella and the work she did to help the women in this story.

Overall a magnificent read and one I highly recommend.

In The Lost Apothecary, we are introduced to Nella, a female apothecary in the 18th century, who dispenses poison to women who come to her for revenge on the men who have wronged her. When a young girl named Eliza comes to Nella on behalf of her mistress, it sets off a chain of events that will change Nella and Eliza's lives forever. In the present day, we meet Caroline, a young American who has come to London alone on what was supposed to be an anniversary trip with her husband, who finds one of Nella's own apothecary vials and sets off on an adventure of her own to discover more about the person behind the vial and possibly re-discover herself.

Honestly, it took me a while to get into this story. The premise was amazing, and I was so excited to read it. However, I found the beginning a bit slow because of all of the time the author spent setting up the main conflict and getting to the meatier bits of the plot. By the midpoint, however, I was fully invested. I especially enjoyed the Nella and Eliza bits of the story, which were a bit more suspenseful and interesting. Caroline's story was a little less engaging, although I appreciated the similarities between Caroline and the women that Nella helped in the past and can see why the author felt we needed a modern character touchpoint.

In spite of the slow start, I enjoyed this novel and will definitely recommend it to others who love historical fiction.

I'm a little disappointed by this one. I think my expectations were a bit too high from the description but I was really looking forward to learning about the apothecary who helped killed hundreds of men who had wronged the women in their lives. But in the end, it just fell flat for me. The double timeline did not help make this any more exciting either.

Based on the summary, I was expecting a darker story with some suspense and intrigue but I ended up with a story set in two different times about women who had been cheated by their loves and spent the rest of the book dealing with it. Nella deals with it by turning her mother's apothecary store into a place where she dispenses poisons to other women who have been harmed by men. This was the story I was most interested in and had hoped to get deeper into. Nella's relationship with her mother, her client and friend Eliza, and the man who cheated on her made a very intriguing story. There's love and loss, backstabbing and new friendship as well as guilt and hope and danger. This alone could have made quite a fascinating story. But then we're slowed down by the story of Caroline and her anniversary trip spent alone trying to figure out where a discarded bottle she found in the river came from. She's dealing with her husband's infidelity by hunting down the history of the mystery apothecary while questioning the last ten years of her life, blaming most of her unhappiness on her husband. Her story is supposed to show personal growth alongside her discoveries of the apothecary who was rumored to have been a serial killer. But it just slowed everything down and was actually very boring. Her storyline felt too simple with drama that was unnecessary and then very easily resolved. I just didn't feel like it was needed at all. And even though these women lived 120-some years apart and from different countries, their voices sounded very similar.

I know that a lot of people have really been enjoying this book and I'm glad. I think this is mostly just because my expectations didn't line up with what the book was offering. I was looking for something darker but it ended up being a rather feel-good story with easy resolutions around a lot of assumed danger that never put the characters in much actual danger. I know it sounds like I didn't like this but it wasn't bad. It was just not what I was hoping for.

The cover drew me in, the story made me stay. I won't go over the premise as so many have but I will say I enjoyed the dual-time storytelling, something I do not always love. I do wish there had been a bit more suspense to it as that's what the description and cover led me to believe but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I received an e-arc of this from the publisher through NetGalley.

This book hit a sweet spot for me: it's about historical research, it's feminist, involves women's networks, and herbalism. Nella's a richly conceived character who has devoted her life to helping women, whether it's healthcare needs or a desire to right a wrong done to them by a man. She specializes in poisons, and everything goes wrong when a woman blackmails her into providing a poison to kill another woman. The narrative, including the story of the woman researching this hidden history in the present day, is totally compelling.

The 1790s to current days. A small blue vial is found in the Thames. What follows is the search for the what, how and why of it and of the marriage of the finder.
Thank you netgalley for the advance copy.

My main takeaway from this book is that men SUCK. They suck in the past and they suck in the present. The story of Nella and Eliza is a simple one but it's intriguing nonetheless. Listening to the reasons why these men are being poisoned and then trying to get away with it? Love it. Then connecting the storyline with the present day and Caroline? Love Caroline. HATE James. I would give this 5 stars if what I wish happened to James would have happened. I was invested in her research and her journey into discovering the lost apothecary. She also found herself and her courage and became her own person again. I absolutely would recommend this book and be prepared to hate James if you do read it.

I really didn’t want this book to end! I I tried to savor it but I just couldn’t. Ms. Penner did such a fantastic job of transporting this reader to the late 1700 England that I could almost feel the prick of a thorn on my finger and the beetles being take between my thumb and finger.

It is about saving the people we love but it also about saving ourselves. I loved the relationship between Eliza and Nella; the friendship between Gaynor and Caroline.
It’s also about women helping women, which is something we all can learn from and do more of.

An entertaining historical fiction debut that is told by narrators in two different time periods.

At the center of this story is a hidden apothecary shop. Secreted behind a false wall and accessible only through a dark alley, this special place served the women of London -- women who had been ill-used or betrayed by men. For the owner would not sell any tinctures, potions, or concoctions to someone who intended to harm another woman. Each transaction was recorded in the apothecary's register to serve as an acknowledgment. The shop had operated out of this back alley for years until one day when it suddenly closed and everything was left behind, untouched, for over 200 years.

1791 London, the current shop proprietress, Nella, has mixed a special poison ordered by a patron who left a letter in the secret barrel outside of the hidden room. At the appropriate hour, someone arrives to collect it but Nella is surprised to find a 12-year-old girl, Eliza Fanning, picking it up for the woman who has requested to be rid of her husband. Eliza and Nella form an unusual relationship and spend some time together. Unwittingly, Eliza makes a mistake that jeopardizes Nella's entire operation.

In the alternate time period, it is current day when Caroline Parcewell comes to London for what was meant to be a 10-year-anniversary celebration. She is alone because she had just discovered that her husband was having an affair and left him behind at home. While out mudlarking on her first day there, she finds an ancient apothecary vial on the banks of the river Thames at low tide. Since she always was interested in artifacts and history, she decides to do some historical research and stumbles upon an old newspaper article that mentions the "apothecary murders" that had occurred in the 1700s.

Although the premise really enticed me, the actual story and the way it was told sort of disappointed. I was much more invested in the 1791 time period and the adventures of Nella and Eliza than I was in the Caroline portion of the novel. I wanted to know more about the actual apothecary and its customers while Caroline's amateur historical searching and the drama surrounding her crumbling marriage wasn't that appealing. The serendipity and coincidence of most of Caroline's discoveries did require a bit of suspension of disbelief. The conclusion left me a bit confused with unanswered questions though the author attempted a tidy wrap up.

Overall it was a quick and enjoyable read. Thank you to NetGalley and Park Row for this e-book ARC to read and review.

The magical, dark atmosphere is what pulled me in. From there the history and story of Eliza, Nella, and Caroline had me captivated. It’s a book I will go back and reread on stormy days. Just wonderful.

The Lost Apothecary was such a great book. I love the contrast between present-day and 1700's London.

Present-day
In this historical fiction mixed with fantasy mixed with some magic, we follow Caroline on her trip to London after learning about her husband's affair. In an effort to not follow an itinerary, Caroline finds herself searching through the shallow waters of the Thames river. There, she finds an old apothecary vial with a mysterious etching. The vial sparks the historian in her, and Caroline sets out to uncover its story.

1700's
Nella's apothecary isn't an ordinary apothecary. Hers is very special. Nella specializes in creating poisons only to be used on men. One day a young girl comes into her shop and makes a very unfortunate mistake. A mistake that can connect Nella to all the mysterious and unexplainable deaths. Now, Nella must find a way to stop her world from crumbling.

I would definitely recommend this book! Such a great read. Thank you, NetGalley.