Book cover of A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons

Book description

The Lost Apothecary meets Dead Dead Girls in this fast-paced, STEMinist adventure.

Debut author Kate Khavari deftly entwines a pulse-pounding mystery with the struggles of a woman in a male-dominated field in 1923 London.

Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to blaze a new trail at the University…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved the main character, the beautifully named Saffron Everleigh. She’s a woman in 1923 London, trying to make her way in academia at a time when women weren’t usually allowed in the doors.

Her scientific interests and studies in botany come in handy when she attends a dinner party for the school, and a professor’s wife drops to the floor, poisoned by an unknown substance. Working with the equally passionate, ahem, Alexander Ashton, a fellow researcher, Saffron must investigate the murder or wind up next on the murderer's list. There are two more books in this series, so we…

In the cozy mystery by Kate Khavari, Saffron is the main character who follows in her father’s footsteps as a botanist.

She’s in search of a Chilean species commonly known as Devil’s Trumpet, which has a beautiful trumpet-shaped flower that hides its poisonous use. 

This story is a ‘will-they-or-won’t they’ romance between Saffron and Alexander, a biology researcher, but what’s romance without a little plant poison in the mix?

If you love A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons...

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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