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A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I had been wanting to read this one for a good while and it was a 3.5 read for me that I rounded up because I did like Saffron and especially Alexander a lot. However, Saffron's poor decision making almost had me DNFing this early on until I remembered there was precedence for it. And my copy didn't have the blurb mentioning it was 1923 and I was struggling with time period. I could tell it was post WWI and pre WWII but that's a big time period so I wish there was a more solid setting in the book itself.

Saffron is a young scientist, a botanist following in her father's footsteps. He was lost in the war. I suppose as someone with multiple degrees in science I felt a kinship with her. She of course faces misogyny and prejudice against her gender but has a champion in Dr. Maxwell whose paternal role in her life means a lot. However at a faculty party celebrating the upcoming trip to the Amazon to explore, the philandering Dr. Henry's wife was poisoned and is in a coma and Maxwell is the suspect.

Saffron needs him back. She also cares about him as a person and knows he couldn't have done this but someone has gone to lengths to make it look like a plant he'd brought back from Mexico and cultivates in the university greenhouse could be responsible. (also as someone who has poisonous plants in the university greenhouse, I relate) About the only person on her side is Alexander Ashton who is a microbiologist who will be on the trip. The department chair is Dr Berking, Mr. sleep with me and I'll advance your career (and threw me into flashbacks of getting my medical residency, exactly 70 years after this is set), is going to be of no help.

As Saffron starts to investigate, Alexander is drawn in. He has a lot of potential as a character beyond the mere love interest aspect. He was in WWI, was injured in the war and has PTSD (managing with meditation among other things). She feels she has to prove Maxwell's plant couldn't be responsible so she does an experiment and this is where I nearly DNFed it.

Then I remember 1) it's the 1920s 2) plenty of doctors/scientists used themselves as guinea pigs 3) yes it's still stupid 4) this is WHY we have the research guidelines and protections we do today. So I got passed that. However I did wish Saffron would have made less wild theories. She's a scientist. I would have liked to have seen more scientific method (hypothesis, data collection etc) from her.

And of course the ending required her to do the dumb thing she did or it wouldn't have worked so there's that. I do like however how they ended it and the set up she gets from it at the end. I'd like to see more of Saffron.



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