![]() Heather Webb, bestselling co-author of Meet Me in Monaco Readers who enjoy Katherine Howe and Susanna Kearsley will be drawn to this promising, fast-paced debut. Agent: Stefanie Lieberman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. 'An intoxicating debut, The Lost Apothecary is a riveting tale of poisons and potions and dark deeds in the name of survival. This has a few things going for it, but in the end it fails to cast a spell. Penner’s story starts strong but peters out as the engaging premise gets muddled in convenient plot turns, though the author does a good job of making two disparate stories into eventual foils for one another. Back in the present, Caroline contends with James showing up and getting accidentally poisoned after trying to win her back. Penner switches from Caroline’s sleuthing to the story of the apothecary, Nella Clavinger, who gave poison to women to use on men who wronged them in various ways. Her research on the bear etched on the bottle turns up newspaper articles about the suicide of a woman known as the London “Apothecary Killer” in 1791, and leads her to the site of the woman’s shop. There, she finds a glass vial in the Thames. ![]() After Caroline Parcewell learns her husband, James, is having an affair, she flies alone from Ohio to London on what was meant to be their anniversary trip. In Penner’s faltering debut, a contemporary American woman uncovers a clue to a series of unsolved murders in 18th-century London. Brilliantly interwoven with both dark themes of guilt and revenge and uplifting messages of friendship and hope, The Lost Apothecary is hard to stop listening toand even harder to stop thinking about. ![]()
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