A historical novel that, sadly, reflects modern struggles. There are a lot of stories for the reader to keep track, which was occasionally confusing. Did enjoy having the dog's POV!

(duplicate review due to approval for eARC and audiobook)

This novel is set in 1920’s in Vancouver, Canada and yet so much of what is depicted feels all too familiar. There’s no heavy handed preaching here, but it was stunning to think of the parallels today . While this is a work of historical fiction, there are relevant issues such as sexual identity, unaccepted homosexual relationships, adulterous relationships, women trying to find their place in the world that doesn’t keep them beaten down. Rum running and revenge and clueless , cruel men.

The rights of women, especially reproductive rights with a focus on illegal and dangerous and many times deadly back room abortions is front and center . It is not just a story about this, but a story of a family, of four sisters, who they are as individuals with their strengths and their flaws and it’s about their relationships with each other, their grieving mother and their husbands or lovers. So much here, so introspective in multiple points of view. Characters to care about as well as a dog named Rue who is pretty astute . The Very Marrow of Our Bones was so good I couldn’t believe it was a first novel. I was not disappointed in Higdon’s second.


I received a copy of this book from ECW Press through NetGalley .

Set in Vancouver in 1922, the novel follows the lives of four sisters, forever affected by one sister’s illegal abortion. With themes of love, corruption, LGBTQ relationships, women’s rights and addiction, this historical novel is a wonderful read. For the most part the story is told in the third person. However this narration is interspersed with the voices of one of the sisters and the pet dog, who is a delight.

This is my first read by this author.

It had a lot going on from back street abortion and almost dying to being gay in this time frame. A pup named Rue and a scoundrel who I honestly disliked immensely. This is a book about sisters and a drug addicted mother. Unhappy and happy married sisters. A sister in love with her sister's husband. That is not going to end well. A sister in love with another woman.

This story did hit on lots of women's issues that still basically exist now this many years later. It's well written in my opinion and it's a historical that makes you think. So it has a lot going on. Keeping these sisters separate was not too hard to do.

I think you will like this book. It's not a light easy read though so be warned. Some parts are a bit hard but overall it's good.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

This novel kept me interested from first to last page.I enjoyed the sisters and rue the dog.This is a saga touching on many topics including abortion.relationships happy and sad.#netgalley #ecw

In 2018, I read Christine Higdon’s debut novel, The Very Marrow of Our Bones (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2018/04/review-of-very-marrow-of-our-bones-by.html). Because I really liked it, I looked forward to reading her sophomore book. I enjoyed it very much.

The book focuses on the lives of the four McKenzie sisters living in Vancouver in 1922. Georgina, the eldest, is married to Victor, a man who provides her financial security but does not make her happy. Morag is happily married and newly pregnant; her husband Llewellyn is a policeman who is also a rum-runner. Isla is secretly in love with Llewellyn; finding herself pregnant, she has a back-street abortion that nearly results in her death. Harriet-Jean, the youngest, is confused because of her feelings for another woman, Flore Rozema. The family also includes Ahmie, the women’s mother who is addicted to laudanum, and Rue, a beagle rescued by Harriet.

I loved how there is no difficulty differentiating the sisters. Each emerges as a distinct character. Georgina yearns for more - opportunities that her working class family could not provide. Morag is blissfully happy, while Isla, though she is seen as “opinionated and fearless, and defiant,” has regret as a constant companion. Harriet-Jean struggles with her feelings for a woman in a world where homophobic violence is common. I found myself empathizing with each woman. For instance, Georgina may be “imperious . . . so rarely soft, so rarely amiable,” but her back story cannot but move the reader. Even Ahmie who is an ineffectual mother deserves sympathy for all that she has endured.

The novel is excellent at describing the realities of life in the 1920s, especially for women. It is men who decide what a woman can and cannot do. Life for a pregnant, married woman is untenable: “’A child out of wedlock is a prison sentence for a woman. And not only that, she’d be a victim of society’s disapprobation for the rest of her life.’” Flore describes Isla’s life if she’d had the baby: she’d “’be seen as a fallen woman. By virtually every human being whose feet trod this earth. Lose her job. Be sneered at and judged by even the shortest pillars of society. The self-righteous, the hypocritical.’” Since abortion is illegal, women turn to “’Gin. Turpentine. Pennyroyal. Rue. . . . Hat pin. Crochet hook. Knitting needle. Bicycle spoke.’”

But it is not just the harsh realities of women’s lives that are depicted. A man is badly beaten because he is a homosexual. Georgina’s husband rails against “the tide of Oriental immigration.” Disparaging comments are made about other immigrants such as Italians. Wealthy women gather to “bemoan the plight of the poor. Debate the causes of poverty (laziness, uncleanliness, lack of faith, undesirable hereditary traits, too much drink).” Men lose their lives in war and to the pandemic and leave shattered families.

Though set one hundred years in the past, the book is so relevant to the present. The reversal of abortion laws in the U.S. may mean women must once again turn to dangerous ways of ending unwanted pregnancies. Intolerance toward gay and Trans people seems to be increasing. Drug addiction, demonization of immigrants, and police corruption continue to be problems. Isla wonders “How different will life be for . . . children who arrived in the world nearly a generation after my sisters and me?” The answer is not positive.

The book is narrated from the perspective of various characters. The most unusual is that of Rue. I enjoyed his comments about the humans he encounters. He provides comic relief, though the humour is sometimes dark. For instance, when he hears about shell shock, he says, “I paid careful attention to where I placed my feet when walking with Rasia on the shell-strewn beaches near our abode, lest I be shocked.”

I love the author’s figures of speech. A dull and disappointing man is “a tire puncture on one’s bicycle the morning of a planned excursion, an empty jelly jar.” A confused man standing in a doorway is “lost as Franklin was, there in his own frozen Northwest Passage.”

The book examines a number of serious and important issues (search for love and justice and acceptance and equality and identity, sexual orientation, corruption, addiction, reproductive rights) but in a manner that engages the reader with both heart-warming and heart-breaking episodes.

It’s been five years since I read The Very Marrow of Our Bones, but I may have to re-read it. I remember that there’s a character named Aloysius McFee in that novel. Could he be the same Aloysius McFee from this novel? I will certainly be recommending Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue and then suggesting that readers who have not already done so might want to read The Very Marrow of Our Bones afterwards.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

A family saga of sorts set in Vancouver in the 1920s, this hits on all sorts of topics that make it contemporary. The four sisters experience love, loss, death, betrayal and there's LGBTQI and a back street abortion, the implications of which are far reaching. Oh, and a dog named Rue also has some input. It's a bit of a mishmash and takes some patience but once you've committed to the family, you will care about them. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

𝙄𝙣 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙢𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙣, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙩- 𝙪𝙥, 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙖𝙨, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩. 𝙒𝙚 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙙 𝙪𝙥.

The title is perfect and fits the storyline. This novel is a soup, there are many struggles and controversial topics relevant today. It takes place in Vancouver during the 1920's but if ever the saying "history repeats itself" has a book as evidence, this is it. Take a pandemic, drug addiction, financial instability, infertility, the aftermath of war, sexuality, family drama, betrayal, affairs and it could be a novel straight out of modern times. The dynamics between siblings in most families is complex, and it follows much the same here. The family members are Rodric, who died after returning from the war, Baby John who only Roddy spent time with and passed before he had a chance to grow up, and the girls Georgina (responsible), Isla (militant), Morag (charming and clairvoyant), and Harriet-Jean (the youngest and all that entails). Then there is the matriarch, Ahmie, who is a shadow of her former self, gutted and disconnected since the death of her husband and the abyss left behind when her Roddy, the surviving male, died. Not even her laudanum tincture can ease her grief. She has mostly given up her role. Everyone has their secret shames as well as deep, abiding love for each other, even as they act in ways that cause one another suffering. The dog, Rue, has her day too and lends piercing clarity to the situation and every character, taking over the narrative on and off. The chapters are told in Trimesters, a clever idea, the story as pregnant as two sisters. There are reasons one is free to be happy and look forward to bringing a baby into the world, after all, she is married. The love of her man rightly belongs to her. The world judges, that's nothing new under the sun, in this story many choices a woman has is damning either way. Some decisions can leave a woman next to dead, particularly when men prey on their desperation. In the 1920's, the fun a gal could get up to, particularly during prohibition, was scandalous and it didn't take much to become a fallen woman. Smoking, drinking, 'unnatural attraction', unmarried women falling pregnant, it's a vulgarness the good people cannot abide. Moral hypocrisy was rampant, men were held to wildly different standards, a woman left carrying the shame but not all men are rotten. Love wears many faces in this family tangle, and is often the forbidden sort, not welcome during intolerant times.

The novel opens with two women beside a grave of a couple, one tells the other, who is pregnant, she would have married her. The undeniable ache for it and yet the impossibility, who ever heard of two women marrying? Then the story crawls back in time with Isla getting into a strange man's car early on a Saturday morning, we don't know why, all we know is by nightfall the sisters are at a dance hall, and she is nowhere to be seen. They are all hungry to lighten their burdens, even if Georgiana's husband is surrounded by his cronies, at least she has her sisters and pregnant Morag's husband, policeman Llewellyn to enjoy the night with. Not that she really wants to be there, her love story didn't turn out the way she had dreamed when she was young, before the war stole her future. Since the death of their father and brother Roddy, she has always been the solid one who fixes things and makes all the important decisions but mostly by default. She finally spots Harriet, mooning over Isla's friend Flore Rozema. Her desire naked. The only trouble is, Isla said she and Flore were hiking together that morning, and Flore said she hadn't seen her all day. By the time they discover her whereabouts, they will truly understand the meaning of violation, and shame.

A criminal case could be built upon the incident, and those in power seem far more concerned about Isla's character than what has happened to her. Almost as if her suffering is just, deserved. All of their lives are open to personal attacks, insinuations. Pity, blame, which is worse? This novel exposes what it meant to be a woman in a time that was unforgiving, painting every situation with the same brush. Police aren't the necessarily the heroes here either, not all of them anyway. Revenge worms its way inside the story too, but how do you avenge such a thing? The public, as the author writes, loves nothing more than other people's miseries, and this family has more than their share. There are more bruises in this novel than what is visible on the skin of victims.

I think the characters were wonderfully written, struggling with conformity, their own inner moral compass that forces recklessness, men who live in a different world entirely and can walk away unscathed, and since the beginning of time, the world always needs people to wear a scarlet letter so they can feel better about their own rottenness. Not all marriages are blessed with happiness and not all singlehood is a death sentence. Not all big families survive. No one escapes pain, but love, love is the one thing that is certain, and often all that's left in the end. If ever life isn't fair, the sisters learn it all too well. I was engaged with the turn of every page, my one complaint was I feel there were gaps that needed filling, more story to be had. The subjects were a reminder of how hard women have fought to have agency over their own life. It's a heavy read, but don't expect a romantic ending. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: September 12, 2023

ECW Press

This was not for me. A very hard read due to the writing itself. Everything felt messy and disorganized. As a result I couldn’t get into the story and it felt like a schoolwork forced read.

1920s- Four sisters living in Vancouver are the subjects of this book which touches on addiction, sexuality, infidelity, secrets, police corruption, abortion, loss, and love. They all love, and all are yearning.

The sisters: Morag is a pregnant woman in love with her husband, Llewellyn. She is not the only one in love with him. Georgina is unhappily married to a man she does not love. Harriet-Jean still lives with their mother and is in love with another woman. Isla is in love with her sister's husband and has had an abortion.

This book is somewhat slow, yet I found it to be enjoyable. I found myself swept into their lives and felt for all, but also was frustrated by two of them. The book begins with Isla nearly dying from an illegal back-alley abortion. An investigation begins. How will this change the sisters? What will happen?

So many things have changed for women, but some things have remained the same. This book depicts the struggles, the lack of choices, and the aftermath of choices. Where women bear the brunt (if not all) of the consequences for choices that are made. This is not a happy-go-lucky book. But it was a very nicely done historical fiction book that shows life in the 1920's in Vancouver.

I had both the book and the audiobook version of this book.

Engaging, thought provoking, well written.

When I first started this book, I expected it to be a lighthearted account of sisters during prohibition-era Canada. However, much deeper and difficult topics are covered, including abortion, gender and sexuality, grief, war, and justice. The novel is reminiscent of Little Women, but rather with young adults and relative themes. I enjoyed this read, although it had a slower start, and it took me some time to really sort out all of the characters. Because there were so many main characters, I would have loved deeper development on a select few. It is notable that so many of the struggles that the women dealt with 100 years ago are still relevant for society today. This was a provocative read and I would recommend it to those who enjoy period pieces.

There's a lot to like about this novel, some of it right from the beginning and some of it that had to grow on me, like the narrating dog. Of course the central topic is abortion, and the author does a great job of spinning up all of the webs and networks of thought and fact and history about abortion in the early 20th century. The characters, though, we not evenly developed, and some of their thoughts and actions seemed rather arbitrary because of this: Flore, the firebrand radical, never seems to do much that is actually radical, and she lives off her dad's money; Llew, the cop who also runs whiskey is also a bit of a flat character, and--spoiler alert--the only reason he runs whiskey is so that the author can kill him off easily near the end. Ahmie has more of a personality in the epilogue than the entire rest of the book, and killing off Morag in the epilogue just feels weird--what does her death serve, from a literary perspective, other than to tell readers that her child has been taken by her estranged in-laws...and what does that do, other than set up a sequel, maybe? It felt pointless. I'd love to send this back for one more round of edits.

The family of sisters at the centre of this book are very different. Georgina the eldest is mourning her beau lost in the war becomes a social climber despite not loving her husband. Harriet, the confused but awakening lesbian. Morag is the pregnant wife of Llewellyn. A policeman who is also the father of the baby which is aborted by the fourth sister Isla. It is the reactions to this backstreet abortion around which the narrative flows.
I didn't find this an easy read but I persevered because the subject matter interested me. Set in 1920's Canada it shocked me to realise this was the situation of women only 30 years before I was born. We like to think things have changed and improved so much for women and although in some ways they have, in others, for instance the recent reversal of abortion laws in the US, things are very similar to those depicted in this book 100 years ago. I felt the book contained a lot of unnecessary padding which made it overly long. For example the addition of Rue the dog who did not really seem to serve any useful purpose. However this is just my opinion.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue was a very enjoyable read, the characters (including Rue the dog) were all interesting and had their own stories.
Just the right mix of uplifting, heartbreak and drama for me, I like a good family historic novel and I won’t be hesitating to recommend this book to our readers.

Four sisters, the end of war, a pandemic and life goes on. This is a story of the lives of Morag, Georgina, Harriet-Jean and Isla and living in the excitement and changing world of the 1920's.

This is a good story and one that will take you on a journey of the times. I like the four sisters and found their stories endearing and heart-breaking at times. But is was a bit strange at times with the dog! Rather weird and had to skim through these sections.

Good characters, a good story but needs a bit of work to make it a great book.

Thank you NetGalley and ECW Press for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

"Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue" by Christine Higdon may be set in the 1920s but many of the themes are relevant to modern day life, sadly in North America. Abortion is illegal, so many seek a backstreet abortionist. In this story, it seems he may be a serial killer. I liked some characters: Llew, Isla, Morag but maybe I wasn't so invested in some of the other characters, including the dog.

This book opens with sisters drunkenly having a good time, so I thought I was getting a different book.
I'm glad I didn't.
A back street abortion gone wrong changes the life of each of the sisters, most of which don't seem truly happy.
As we followed them on their paths, I got more invested in their story, and all the other characters who sprang up from it.
Except the dog. Could have done without him.
A bit misty eyed by the last page.
I fear I'm turning into an emotional wreck.

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue....all things women used to use to cause a natural abortion. You know immediately when you write a book about abortion, or I presume you would know, that half of the country is already going to be turned off by reading about it. One of the sisters in this book finds herself pregnant in the years after WWI and goes to a back alley doctor - a decision that almost costs her her life. Personally, stories that center around abortion and abortion rights don't bother me, but I HATED that the dog narrated random chapters in this novel . Hated. This had tons of potential, great human characters, but the dog's intrusive and really not significant chapters will prevent me from recommending.