The Lost Apothecary: The New York Times Top Ten Bestseller

I have nothing against American authors. However, the author of this book did not do enough research about English history and the spoken language in the 18th century. English people then would not have said, “okay” or used casual speech and we do not call trainers, sneakers! Also trainers were not even invented then. I found these references annoying and so I gave up with this book. It may be a good story and I may decide to come back to it, but please do your research if you are going to write anything about historical England and London.

I liked the idea of the book, but wished I looked at who’d actually reviewed it, actually no one of interest! Anyway, three chapters in and it’s irritating reading about English history with poor American editing, ‘trash’ ‘sneakers’ etc the list goes on, if your going to write about London at least get those bits right, all pretty basic stuff ! Because the Victorians didn’t put their trash out ! And mucklarker’s don’t talk about wearing sneakers. Sorry, stopped reading after those basic annoying mistakes, which stuck out like a sore thumb, I’m sure it wasn’t going to get any better, dull and rather predictable unfortunately.

This is in my opinion a masterpiece.Set in 1791 and 2021 it is a fictional story about a lady Apothecary who made up poisons and sold them to women to poison their husband's who were abusive to them.She kept a record in a hidden room but things went wrong when a 12 year old girl made a mistake.This is entwined with an American lady separated from her husband and comes across a phial in the Thames and a mystery ensuesYou feel you are living in 1791 and there are twists and turns.As a first novel from the author it grips you from page 1 to the end and few novels can do that.

Firstly I cannot believe this is a debut, it is written seamlessly and makes for very addictive reading. I couldn’t put it down and read it over 24hrs. The characters and story literally come alive and the moves forward and back across the century’s is intoxicating. The twists and turns continue to add to the story line. I cannot wait for her next book.

I absolutely loved this book it was so different on a subject matter I knew nothing about, until now.I’m not always a lover of dual timelines, some authors can do this perfectly and others leave me lagging. I feel that several readers have not enjoyed this timeline and I’d heard that prior to going into this one.So how I dealt with the dual timeline in this one was as if the updated one was actually the one telling me the story of the past in the 1700’s. Doing that in my head made this so very much better.I didn’t then see it as two separate identities but as one historical interest of “future” person learning from the past (if that makes sense?)I loved how the author referred to differing terms relating to each time in history or the now.For example, history person referred to a woman’s cycle as menstrual flow.Update...... periods.There were great references as that within each era. I picked that up.Also when speaking of the Police, roads, alleys.There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of research went into this book to make it as historically authentic as possible.The story of this one women, this Apothecary and how she used her knowledge from good to bad but how good gets mixed up with bad. Convinced that you are doing something good but it’s hidden behind bad.....or is it bad being hidden behind good!The forming of a loyal friendship between a young person and someone older.Helping others with their plight in life.Sometimes I found this eerie and at times I found it sad that something happened to make you feel you were doing a service for good.I went into this book because I’d seen it everywhere. I also joined in an Instagram book group read.There are lots of differing thoughts about this book but I flippin’ loved it.* A topic I’ve never read about before* A dual timeline that I revised to the future person talking to me about what she’s found so far....The writing was excellent.I love lots of dialogue usually in books. This one has that but, it also has many pages where it does not and you know what......I didn’t notice. Not until I flicked back through the pages after I’d finished it.Did I say I loved this book?Oh....and look at the cover!