I absolutely loved this title. Admittedly, I"m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but this was just the right blend of current and historical to be a beautifully written mystery. The feminist aspects of it were timely and well deserved. In fact, I could see a spin-off title, although I'm pleased with this ending. My fans of all things magic will enjoy it and I cannot wait to recommend it.

Fantasy for the Me Too! movement! Trying to help the powerless achieve some justice, an Apothecary, seeing the damage caused to her customers, steps over the boundaries of her profession and her oaths. Before women had legal recourse and the ability to band together in public forums to give power to their voices and stories, this was many times an alternative to remediate wrongs. Remember the Burning Bed?

This was such a good book! I loved it from the start. I love the writing and the story, I was drawing to the magic of the timelines. And nothing turned out how I thought it would.

Wonderfully researched, beautifully written, and an intriguing premise of a woman apothecary who uses her knowledge of herbs and other natural remedies to help her female clients punish (aka murder) the men in their lives who have hurt/abused them.

I'm a sucker for a dual timeline, and Penner weaves a story that bounces back and forth between the late 1700s and Nella, the apothecary of the title, and present day Caroline, who finds one of Nella's apothecary bottles while on an impulsive "mudlarking" expedition in the River Thames.

While both stories are well done, it's Nella's that I'm drawn to. The local authorities consider Nella's acts that of a serial killer. Meanwhile Nella, once a healer like her mother, and now the very opposite, has a code of ethics of sorts - her poisons should never be used on women, and only on men who are guilty of wrongdoing. She is joined by Eliza, a precocious 12-year-old servant girl who is sent by her mistress to procure a poison. Their story was stronger and had me turning pages, while Caroline's historical research through the British Library into the bottle and where it came from was interesting (from the research perspective).

The author ties the two stories together neatly. All and all, its a really enjoyable tale.

I loved this book! It is very well-written, suspenseful, informative, and fascinating! It is set in two time periods - present day and 1791, both in London. Nella is the titular apothecary in 1791 who serves only women, both for good and for harm. She has a secret room behind her regular shop where the "harm" takes place. Eliza is a 12-year-old servant girl who meets Nella when she runs an errand for her mistress. In present-day London, American visitor Caroline discovers a blue vial in the River Thames while "mudlarking," a discovery that will change her life. The story is so beautifully written, skillfully moving between past and present to tell the interwoven story. All three women are strongly drawn characters, different in many ways but similar in intelligence and strength. Many thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for providing an ARC.

I’ve been reading a lot of books that have the dual time thing going on and I really like them, although when things get really intense in one of the settings and it’s the end of the chapter and jumps to the other timeline I get a little crazy! This is a really interesting read that has so much history, adventure and a good imagining of women’s lives in the 1800’s. The whole idea of herbology/alchemy is simply fascinating. Well done!

Thank you to the publisher and author for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love a good story of magic and witchery and expected to find that in this title. While not a book about magic, it had the feel of old witchery with a female apothecarist who uses her knowledge of herbology and toxicology to provide poisons to women in need. I enjoyed the dual narrative jumping back and forth from present day and 1791. I liked following the apothecarist's story and learning of how she turned from curing to killing. In the present day, we follow the narrative of a historian alone on her 10th anniversary trip after learning that her husband had been unfaithful. While in London, she finds a relic from the past that leads her to discover the story of the apothecary killer. The book was well written, creative, and really fun to read. I was interested from the first page to the last. Great book to get lost in and just enjoy the story.

18th century London and current times intersect in this lovely mystery involving an apothecary shoot that dispensed curatives and poisons to women seeking improvement in their lives and a young woman whose life was put on hold, and then upended by her unfaithful husband, who uncovers the secret of the shop. Very readable with good plot development and plenty of London back alley history. Clever, different, and satisfying.

What an absolutely fantastic idea for a novel! I loved the writing, the premise, the inter-generational story line- everything!! I am absolutely buying this book for my library- it would be a great book club pick. Thanks to Net Galley for the chance to read and review this book!

This book was written through the perspectives of three characters: modern day Caroline, struggling with her marriage and own identity; Nella, an aging apothecary with dark secrets; and Eliza, a brave, yet naive young character unfamiliar with 18th-century England. The story switches perspectives/narrators every chapter which keeps readers enticed. Sarah Penner did an excellent job at leaving the reader in suspense as one chapter ended only to pick up on the same thread of storyline in the next, with a different time and narrator. The only character I feel was not well developed was Lady Clarence; I felt that she was a bit historically inaccurate in her dialogue. However, this book overall is an enjoyable and suspenseful read for anyone interested in books on magic, women's empowerment, and historical fiction.

Really intriguing, well-researched premise and a gorgeous cover, this was a great book. My only issue with it was structural in nature. As with any book that flips between the perspective of different protagonists or different time periods, invariably one of those halves just isn't as interesting as the other. For me, that was the case with this book.

I would have loved an entire book about Nella and Eliza and the drama and details of the apothecary. While I felt like the Caroline storyline (set in modern times) became more touching and compelling toward the end, for the first half of the book those chapters felt like a distraction. (I would have rather read about Nella/Eliza having those experiences in the past than Caroline researching those experiences in the future.). However that's not really an issue with the writing per se, but more with my personal taste.

I appreciated the information on different recipes/tinctures at the end of the book (However again, I would have liked more of that throughout the entire book--I remain intrigued by the whole notion of the apothecary and how Nella ran it). I also appreciated the well-rounded characters who had fascinating interior lives. This isn't so much a murder-mystery as an examination of women--their desires, motivations and relationships. And on that front, this book excels.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Good read to transport you to 16th century London juxtaposed with modern London. The glimpse into the lives of women and how they are perceived in both eras is interesting and shows some of the issues we still face as women.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this book since I expected it to be "fluff". It was not. The story, presented during two time frames, was intriguing and well presented. There was good character development which is important to me. Fun read!

Thanks to NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
18th century London, and a secret apothecary dispenses poison for women to do away with the man who wronged them. Her one rule is to never turn the poison on another woman, but what happens when she is forced to break her rule?
In today’s time, Caroline is on holiday in London when she discovers a vial on the banks of the Thames. With a knack for research and history, will she uncover the answer to a 250 year old mystery?
The book has a great pace and had me early. It’s a face paced read and not too long so I could read it in just a few days. I think this would be a good book discussion and will likely recommend it to my patrons. I also liked that it was a good mystery type book yet clean for my readers as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed losing myself in this book. The story was compelling-- who doesn't dream of finding an artifact and discovering its source-- and possibly unravelling a historical mystery? Some surprising plot twists made the story even more satisfying. The service Nella provides and her dedication to recording transactions so her customers will be remembered-- and her general perspective on the roles and treatment of women make this a good choice for book clubs. Young Eliza, with her strong interest and faith in magick was a perfect sidekick for Nella--we all want to believe in magick!

Fairly interesting story. A bit simplistic. Why toss the bottle which started everything and why not tell Eliza's story? ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

I really enjoyed the three narrators and the switching from past to present. It was very poignant that the modern day woman has similar issues to those of the women Nella supplies. I personally really liked seeing the process of the character’s historical research because it made it seem more realistic.

Wow, another new book I can give high marks to! Lovers of historical fiction, especially involving women's issues, will really like this very believable new story. The setting is partly contemporary and partly set in Georgian era London. A female apothecary, a young servant girl, and a twentieth century woman in London for her wedding anniversary are the primary characters. The latter walks in the footsteps of the former two and uncovers a mystery that may impact her life in America more than she expects.

I have to say I would have done the same digging if I'd been the American (using my history and librarian degrees).

Before we begin, I’d just like to say this is the first print (prose) book I have finished since April. It took me a month, but I did it! The Rona pandemic has left me without much concentration for reading, and I went from reading 2-3 print books per week before all of this, to apparently 1 every three months or so. It sucks, but this book did not.

In modern day, Caroline Parcewell was supposed to take a trip with her husband to London, but when she finds out he’s been cheating on him, she leaves him behind and makes the journey solo. While combing the shores of the Thames, she comes across an old glass bottle with an engraving, and as an aspiring historian, she embarks on a quest to discover its origins.

In Eighteenth-Century London, Nella serves as an apothecary. She and her mother used to dispense remedies for women suffering from various ailments, but ever since a dark moment in her past, Nella also helps women who need to rid themselves of the men in their lives. When she meets housemaid Eliza, the girl takes a shining to Nella and while apprenticing for her, makes a mistake that just may cause them their lives.

The story moves seamlessly back and forth between the two time periods, and while I wasn’t overly interested in Caroline’s story at first, I found myself rooting for her and wanting to take the journey with her and not just leave her behind when the story moved back to the Eighteenth Century. I absolutely loved Nella and Eliza, their relationship, and I was fully invested in their outcomes.

I loved the mysterious aspects of the unfolding story. I’m not one for the genre myself, but I love an intriguing story that has mysterious elements of discovery as long as it’s not a whodunnit. This book is so much more. It’s a story about the inner lives of women that time has forgot. What they must have been through, how they lived, what they did. Things we’ll never know because they weren’t written down in the books of men but are so so important to our history.

I was so happy to finally finish a book, and I’m so grateful that this story was so good to encourage me to keep going, even when I was so tired I could only do a chapter or two per night.

It’s not out until March, but in my humble opinion, it’s worth the wait.

PS the cover is stunning.

I devoured this debut, atmospheric novel set in London. Themes overlap in both the present day and 1790’s settings; feminism, survival, and crossroads guiding the plot. Ms. Penner’s dual timeline story, from 3 points of view, was a joy to read and the historical detail was not lost on this former expat.

“Bachelor Alf ’s words on the mudlarking tour, about how finding something on the river was surely fate. I hadn’t believed it at the time, but I now knew that stumbling upon the tiny blue vial was fate—a pivotal turn in the direction of my life.”

Caroline’s discovery, while on an anniversary trip gone awry, sets in motion the story of 18C. women, and how they protect and defend one another. Friendship and guidance are mirrored in both timelines throughout this novel which I predict will be a hit among the historical fiction crowd (card-carrying member here). Fans of Lauren Willig, Diane Setterfield, and Kate Morton, all masters of this genre, should put this debut novel on their TBR lists. Expected publication March 2021.
Thank you NetGalley and Park Row Publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.