The May 2022 Southeast Steuben County Library read was The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
And here is an overview of the plot:
May Read: The Lost Apothecary: A Novel by Sarah Penner: the cliff notes overview of the plot:
The Lost Apothecary is a novel with three narrators that live in two different time periods.
Frequently, books with multiple narrators can be challenging to read; however, Penner pulls off the trick and smoothly blends the stories of her three female protagonists together. And make no bones about it, this book is, despite the difficulties encountered by the women who appear in its pages; in dealing with patriarchal societies in both the past and present, a feminist tale – the three women readers follow all find ways to be empowered while living in societies, both past and present, that over-empower males and under-empower females in both legal and societal ways.
The book opens in London in 1791 and introduces readers to Nella Clavinger, who readers know from the get-go is the apothecary referred to in the title. Nella runs a hidden apothecary shop located near the crossing of two alleys in London. Nella, who was born illegitimate, inherited the shop from her mother who mixed and sold curative potions for women, to women. When Nella first inherited the shop, she too mixed curative potions for women. And then, while she was working through her grief at her mother’s death, she encountered a sweet talking and attentive man named Frederick, who said he was looking for a potion for his sister Rissa to alleviate her menstrual pain. Frederick was very attentive to Nella and frequently visited her becoming a great comfort to her. The two became lovers, Nella became pregnant and when she broke the news to Frederick he seemed overjoyed, saying he wanted to marry her. He preceded to fix a celebratory dinner for her, and mixed in a potion so she would lose their child. Nella discovered this crime after the fact, and also found her uterus was permanently damaged making her sterile. Nella then encountered Rissa, the lady Frederick said was his sister; and discovered that instead, Rissa is his wife. Nella and Rissa subsequently conspire to poison Frederick and ride themselves of this dangerous, serial philanderer.
And after those events, Nella, working to become as empowered in the times she lives in, changes the purpose of her shop, from mixing potions for women to help women, to mixing potions to poison abusive men, thus helping women get rid of the dangerous men in their lives, something the law in the patriarchal society they were living in, in the 18th century, would not do. Nella had two rules 1. The potions she mixed, which were picked up by women at her secret shop located behind a wall holding shelves of rotted goods, had to say who the potions were intended for so Nella could write the information in her ledger and the women, whose lives would otherwise pass unrecorded, would have their names recorded for posterity and 2. The poisons must never be used on another woman.
The second protagonist in the book, who also lives in London in 1791, is Eliza Fanning, a twelve year old girl whose mother assisted her in getting a servant position so she could provide for herself. Eliza works on the Amwell estate as a housemaid reporting to Mrs. Amwell. Mrs. Amwell has a condition that makes her hands shake and she taught Eliza to read and write so she could assist her with her correspondence. Mr. Amwell, the husband of the lady of the estate, is a middle-aged man who has a history of sexually abusing female servants who work at on the estate. A maid, Johanna, who precede Eliza in working for the Amwells, was raped and impregnated by Mr. Amwell and died in childbirth. Mr. Amwell also tried to rape Eliza but was unsuccessful; and her mistress, who is aware of her husband’s activities, sent Eliza to Nella’s shop to get a poison so that she, Eliza and the women her husband might mistreat in the future can be saved from his abusive actions.
Eliza and Nella make a connection upon meeting. Eliza sees Nella as an empowered woman and Nella sees in Eliza, a young woman who reminders her of the daughter might have had if the treacherous Frederick had not caused her to miscarriage. Nella gives Eliza a potion for Mr. Amwell. And the next morning Eliza mixes the potion in with her master’s eggs, and by the end of the day Mr. Amwell is dead.
Eliza then returns to Nella’s shop to tell how she poisoned Mr. Amwell and to learn more about potion making. While Eliza is at the shop, Lady Clarence visits the shop demanding a potion to poison the young lover of her husband, Lord Clarence. At first Nella refuses to give Lady Clarence a poison because harming another woman goes against her two ethical rules. However, Lady Clarence threatens to expose Nella’s business; proclaiming for all the world to hear that she helps women eliminate the dangerous men in their lives via poison; and Nella agrees to give her the poisoned potion she demands. Eliza wants to assist in mixing the potion and pulls an apothecary bottle from the very back of the cupboard, not noticing that this bottle, unlike the ones at the front of the cupboard, that simply show an engraved bear, also features an engraved street address.
Eliza’s accident provides the momentum that pushes the 1791 storyline to its eventual conclusion. Lady Clarence takes the potion, which is mixed in a drink, intending to murder her husband’s young lover; and that plan misfires and instead Lord Clarence himself drinks the poison and dies. In the aftermath of the murder, Nella’s shop is discovered by the police and Nella and Eliza flee from the shop running toward Blackfriar Bridge. Nella, who has had some health issues due to years of mixing positions, intends to jump off the bridge to distract the police from Eliza; however, Eliza has another plan, she tells Nella not to worry and jumps off the bridge a lucky potion she brewed in an apothecary bottle clutched in her hand. The police arrive and discount Nella as the second woman seen fleeing with “lost apothecary” who jumped off the bridge due to her fragile health.
The third protagonist is Caroline Parecwell, whose story is set in contemporary times. Caroline is an American on holiday in London, taking what was intended to be a trip celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary. She is alone, because just before the trip, she discovered her husband, James, was having an affair with a co-worker.
As Caroline has limited the choice she has made in her life, due to the patriarchal leaning society still in place in the western world in the early twenty first century. As her story unfolds, readers discover she has a master’s degree in history and was planning on continuing her education by studying at Cambridge but instead, was persuaded by her new boyfriend, and later husband James, to return Ohio and take an unfulfilling job help managing her family’s farm, while James advanced in his career. Caroline had also wanted to have children, but James favored waiting until he was solidly established in his career.
So Caroline is in London and stops by The Old Fleet Tavern, located near the Themes, where she meets a man known as Bachelor Alf, who asks her if she’d like to join his mudlarking group. He explains that mudlarking means walking the banks of the Themes and picking up historical items that have risen to the surface. At first Caroline refuses his offer, and goes into the pub for a drink, but then she decides to join the group. And while mudlarking she finds a blue apothecary bottle featuring an engraved bear and a partial address, the same bottle Eliza had on her person when she jumped off Blackfriar Bridge in 1791. The historian in Caroline comes alive and she immediately wants to know more about the apothecary bottle. Bachelor Alf suggests Caroline go to the map room at the British Library and ask Gaynor for assistance in researching where the bottle came from.
James then arrives in London and tries to win Caroline back. James shows he wants and expects things to go his way with a lack of regard for Caroline, by ingesting eucalyptus oil that Caroline suggests he use, topically, and as mentioned to him previously, as a cold remedy. James winds up in the hospital and Caroline realizes he intentionally poisoned himself to get her to forgive him for his adultery. She then continues to research the apothecary bottle with Gaynor’s help; the duo discover a story in an old newspaper from 1791 that relays the tale of an unnamed female apothecary, suspected of selling a poisoned potion, who jumped off the Blackfrair’s Bridge in London to escape the police. A second vintage newspaper article is discovered which features an interview conducted several years later with Eliza Fanning Pepper, a young window with two children, who recently inherited her husband’s successful book shop; and was quoted as saying that she has gotten through the hard times in her life with assistance from an old friend who “still encourages and counsels me to this very day” ; readers infer the old friend is Nella although whether Nella was still living at that time, or had simply passed on experience to Liza before dying, is left ambiguous.
Caroline does some addition research and finds the location of Nella’s old shop which seems to have been untouched since Nella and Eliza fled from the shop in 1791. The shop is small and very dark and Caroline’s phone battery is almost dead, but she is able to take photos of the shop and several pages of Nella’s apothecary journal.
Subsequently, Caroline puts the historical puzzle pieces together and figures out that Eliza jumped from the bridge and not the unknown, by her (Caroline), apothecary; Nella, and that both women survived the events of that tumultuous day in 1791. Although Caroline has solved the mystery of the lost apothecary, she feels protective of her, even though she doesn’t know her name, and she decides to keep the truth – that the lost apothecary wasn’t caught by police in 1791, to herself.
In the aftermath of solving the mystery of the lost apothecary, Caroline too empowers herself by deciding to divorce James and move to the U.K. to attend the University of Cambridge, where she intends study the history of the eighteen century and the romantic period. And although Caroline does not reveal the details she discovered about the lost apothecary; she does use some of Nella’s recipes, the ones she took photos of in Nella’s long deserted shop in London, in her dissertation, as readers discover while reading through to the end of the book.
The book club members agreed The Lost Apothecary was a good read. Although it was noted that the plot was very reminiscent of the book Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen; and the book club member that noted that – also said that book was better, just FYI for reader’s advisory purposes!
It was also noted by several book club members that they preferred the 18th century storyline to the 21st century story line – but all in all, book club members enjoyed reading The Lost Apothecary and would recommend it.
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The June Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club gathering will be held at the library, in the Conference Room on Friday, June 10, 2022 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
The June Read is The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz, copies of which are available at the Circulation Desk – you can pick up a copy anytime between now and June 10.
Have a great day,
Linda
SSCL Book Club for Adults 