A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons

A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons (2022) Kate Khavari (Saffron Everleigh)

Set in England in 1923

Saffron Everleigh a research assistant in University College London, and very few people believe she earned and deserved her degree and position (Because: 1923). Safforn feels she owes everything to her mentor, Dr Maxwell, so when a woman is poisoned at a party, and Dr Maxwell becomes a suspect, Saffron is determined to do everything she can to prove him innocent.

She gets unwilling help from a bacteriologist, who has his own ghosts to deal with.

Alexander couldn’t help but arch a brow at that. More often than not, rain took him back to a dark, muddy trench.

I do think this is an interesting time period.

Coming of age during the Great War and immediately after, the false hope and positivity that came with the end of the War left a bitter taste in her mouth.

One that seemed to be quite different in the US than in England–but the US had prohibition, and that made everything worse.

One thing that bugged me:

they crawled back to the gate through the bushes, catching more rhododendron thorns as they went.

That is wrong on multiple levels.

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Rating: 6.5/10

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