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The Fair Botanists: Could one rare plant hold the key to a thousand riches?

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It was fascinating to be witness to the progress of botanical science and the mechanics of setting up a gardens and possible competition between Kew and Edinburgh. One of the interested parties is courtesan Belle Brodie, an independent and unashamedly spirited woman out to make her own fortune and putting her interest in botany to use making potions for a London apothecary. Elizabeth is a widow moving to Edinburgh to live with her husband’s family, and hoping for a better life.

As head gardener William McNab, Regis Keeper Robert Graham, seed merchant Mrs Dickson, eminent botanist Lady Liston and Belle Brodie all await the flowering with bated breath it makes for a brilliantly complicated affair of hidden motives, blackmail and secret shenanigans.There were occasions where I was reading a sentence and felt that I was lacking context – but that would then come later on and eventually filled in the gaps. For the first hundred or so pages I was fairly engaged, but as new characters are introduced and the sheer volume of detail begins to mount I began to lose interest, I’m afraid I just found the story quite dull, in fact there wasn’t really a great deal of story. It’s the summer of 1822, and in Edinburgh botanists patiently await for the Agave Americana plant to flower in the newly-installed Botanic Garden . The Fair Botanists is Sara Sheridan’s combined tribute to the legacy of women’s history and Edinburgh and takes readers back to the tail end of the Enlightenment in the city.

What is less great, though, is when certain things are written in present tense that should really, really be written in past tense.The setting, the brilliantly drawn cast of passionate characters and the vivid descriptions of the burgeoning plants and flowers will stay with me for a very long time. Belle is single-minded, selfish, she tramples on those who get in her way (especially if they are men) and yet she has her own very strong moral code. The pacing of the whole novel was pitch perfect, and I spent most of my day off happily ensconced reading it. When we went to the Waterstones nearby to treat ourselves to some bookish eye candy, this book caught my attention with its gorgeous cover - and once I found out it has two female MCs trying to lead independent lives, botany and Edinburgh right before king George IV's visit in 1822 about which Rory the tour guide told us many entertaining stories, I knew I couldn't leave it there and proceeded right to the checkout, lol. At times it felt like the author was introducing another strong independent woman at the expense of moving the actual story forward or fleshing out the central characters and this frustrated me.

It is then that she meets the vivacious and mysterious Belle Brodie, a woman with a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation. Beautifully written book but I think setting it in Edinburgh is really the biggest thing that sold me on it. We took extra fruit to feed the sassy squirrels, and went for long wanders among the incredible plants housed inside the huge glass houses.I’m grateful I had the chance to fling away to Edinburgh back then, in 1822, at a time of cultural brilliancy and great change.

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