Review of "The Apothecary's Daughter" on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Less of a ragequit than a boredomquit.
Got this for free on Amazon at some point and thought WHY NOT? but it became evident about a third of the way through that there was going to be a great deal of dithering about love interests before picking the absolute most boring one and the moral was going to be that good girls don't want more for themselves than to live in the same little village they always have and marry their dull childhood friend and be a good wife. OR ELSE THEY ARE WANTON WHORES.
Review of "The Apothecary's Daughter" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Pleasant, well written historical fiction set in regency England and featuring the daughter of an apothecary. Unable to inherit her father's business or even help with it too much due to her gender, she ends up going to live with some wealthier relatives in London for a few years in hopes of finding an eligible husband (really the only option for women of the era). I enjoyed that the book was unpredictable - I really had no idea which of the four potential husbands she would end up with - and there were plenty of interesting subplots that saved it from just being a romance: her mother's disappearance, her father's ailing health and rivalry with a local doctor, her friend Mary, the remarriage and then illness of Sir Henry, and the dangers of her being caught working as a practicing apothecary during her father's illness.
However, I did find there …
Pleasant, well written historical fiction set in regency England and featuring the daughter of an apothecary. Unable to inherit her father's business or even help with it too much due to her gender, she ends up going to live with some wealthier relatives in London for a few years in hopes of finding an eligible husband (really the only option for women of the era). I enjoyed that the book was unpredictable - I really had no idea which of the four potential husbands she would end up with - and there were plenty of interesting subplots that saved it from just being a romance: her mother's disappearance, her father's ailing health and rivalry with a local doctor, her friend Mary, the remarriage and then illness of Sir Henry, and the dangers of her being caught working as a practicing apothecary during her father's illness.
However, I did find there were a lot of questions left unanswered or plot twists that could have been further explored but were not. The mother plot just kind of petered out, as did other points of interest including Roland and Sir Henry, and the rivalry with the nasty doctor. The main character herself was also not an extremely strong character and it was hard to understand in the end exactly why she chose the husband she did, and what she really wanted from life. She never seemed particularly bothered about not being able to be an apothecary despite her intelligence and skill, but she never seemed to develop any other strong interest either, just drifting around vaguely looking for a husband but not even doing that with much apparent determination.
So all in all a decent book which kept me interested on a long plane trip, but I was left feeling it could have been better in several ways.
