Reviews

Overall a good YA victorian style mystery. Nothing too boring or confusing and offers informative tidbits on apothecary plants. Also enjoyed that you don't have to read the books in an order each is its own mystery. This go around Jem an apothecary shop owner and hobby detective finds his life full of questions when he finds a body in his garden that links possibly to his dead mother. Jem needs to find who the body is and how it links to a mother he hardly knew.

ll_griff's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

brii_brii's review

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mellowduck's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

4.75

happlepider's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Spoilers ahead - this book's big reveal is a lesbian murder cult, because they hate men just that much, and you should feel sorry for them, but not too much, and is filled with both lesbophobic stereotypes and a borderline racist misuse of Hindu mythology. The book's mythology is a nonsensical jumble of witches and flying ointment, maenads, and the hindu goddess Kali, which is justified in book by the murderer herself being 'mentally deranged' and confused by her own existence as mixed race and between the two worlds of white british aristocracy and the suppressed population of the Indian raj, and also a victim of incest from her father and brother, and possibly a product of incest between her father and mother as half-brother and -sister, as if mixed race people, incest victims, and lesbians don't regularly exist in real life without being 'mentally deranged' by their own life circumstances. It's fairly obvious she wanted to go for an unexpected perpetrator and a big surprise, but she really overreached herself in the attempt. Given her wholehearted jump into multiple lesbophobic stereotypes - Batsheba is predatory from the off and repeatedly drugs other women, Jem's first experience is with a woman (the other murderer) who is only pretending to be a lesbian as a ruse - it seems bizarre in hindsight that she ever chose to write a wlw main character in the first place. I was invested in the other books in the series I'd read so far, but she's definitely lost a follower through this one.

wviellevoye's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

marlenewild's review

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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