Genre: fiction/historical fiction
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Review: In 1791, Nella is a London apothecary who has made it her mission to help women get revenge on the men who hurt them. She dispenses poisons and teaches women how to use them to kill the men who have shunned them, raped them, cheated on them, or otherwise done them harm. Caroline is a present-day woman who has come to London for what was supposed to be a 10th anniversary trip with her husband. Unfortunately, she's just found out that he's been cheating on her, so she's on her own, asking big questions about the path of her life. Perhaps, if she'd lived in the 18th century, she would have been one of Nella's clients. Instead, she finds one of Nella's vials while mudlarking by the Thames, and is determined to find out the story behind it.
What follows is a dual tale, tracing Nella's possible downfall as one of her poisons is possibly taken by the wrong person, and Caroline's quest to figure out the mystery of the vial and to make the hard decisions about the rest of her life. Both Nella and Caroline are well-written characters, but their lives, both interior and exterior, weren't sketched out quite fully enough for me to understand some of their motivations. Similarly, some of the evidence that Caroline uncovers about Nella felt much too slender to base some of her conclusions on, and the connection between one conclusion and another often felt tenuous.
Still, both Nella's and Caroline's stories are compelling, and together they create a momentum that propels the book forward quite nicely.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
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