The Apothecary's Daughter
Ratings13
Average rating3.5
Lillian Haswell, brilliant daughter of the local apothecary, yearns for more adventure and experience than life in her father's shop and their small village provides. She also longs to know the truth behind her mother's disappearance, which villagers whisper about but her father refuses to discuss. Opportunity comes when a distant aunt offers to educate her as a lady in London. Exposed to fashionable society and romance--as well as clues about her mother--Lilly is torn when she is summoned back to her ailing father's bedside. Women are forbidden to work as apothecaries, so to save the family legacy, Lilly will have to make it appear as if her father is still making all the diagnoses and decisions. But the suspicious eyes of a scholarly physician and a competing apothecary are upon her. As they vie for village prominence, three men also vie for Lilly's heart.
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Another incredible piece of historical fiction with strong characters from second published author[a:Julie Klassen 928415 Julie Klassen https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438099690p2/928415.jpg]. Without a doubt, Klassen is on my favorite author's list. Both [b:Lady of Milkweed Manor 2043100 Lady of Milkweed Manor Julie Klassen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1322223127l/2043100.SY75.jpg 2048032] and [b:The Apothecary's Daughter 3870943 The Apothecary's Daughter Julie Klassen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325356997l/3870943.SY75.jpg 3916135] were so enjoyable. Each chapter starts with a quote of various pharmaceutical and apothecary means as well as a few others and it really sets the scene. It is something she also used in her first book, and I truly believe that it adds an incredible important element to the way her story is told. This book is divided up into sections that works quite well. It is a long book and fabulously so, I did not want it to end. The one qualm that I did have, is that the last section is very dark to me. Everything that can go wrong is going wrong and it was a little much to experience all at once, when the rest of the book was much more light heart-ed. I feel kinda like if there was so more happiness in there with the dark toward the end that it would have worked better. Then it ends abruptly exactly as a perfect ending as it could be. My opinion would have been to draw it out with more details and more “happy” within the dark cloud, rather than having everything fixed in a last chapter and epilogue. But then we readers cannot get everything we want when fabulous authors are limited to just 400 pages or so. Good points and bad, my overall opinion is that the story is fabulous. My favorite portion of all is where the name for the book came from. It makes me teary eyed. And you will just have to go read it to find out why. Once again a winner from Julie in my opinion, and I desperately cannot wait for more books from her in the future!
I got this book quite some time ago, but just got around to reading it. I enjoyed the story and the characters. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.
