There’s Nella, the apothecary owner who poisons people, Eliza the twelve-year-old girl who’s a little too chill about poisoning a guy, (so far so good), and then there’s Caroline. The story goes back and forth between 3 POV characters. With an inexplicable dash of Julie & Julia. What I got was The Davinci Code: For Her. I was expecting a deep dive into this woman’s character that would either be thrillerish or a more lighthearted caper-style romp.

I was expecting a sort of “How’d she get away with it” revenge narrative about a woman who has been pushed to the brink by the cruelty of men and good-old-fashioned 1790s misogyny.

To say it was a letdown is a massive understatement. This concept needs to be confiscated from Sarah Penner immediately and given to literally any other writer.īetween the lovely cover, the book of the month club endorsement and the promise of a Georgian female serial killer working on behalf of wronged women, I was so excited for this book. 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. 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. In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. 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. 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.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register. Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman. A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

The lost apothecary