Review & Excerpt: The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett

 

The Love Remedy (The Damsels of Discovers #1) by Elizabeth Everett

Publication Date: March 19th 2023 by Berkley

Pages: 352

Source: Publisher 

Rating: ★★★★

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Lucy Peterson’s recipe for throat lozenges has been stolen and now her salve for croup has gone missing as well. She thinks she knows the culprit and wants it back as her family desperately needs the money that would come from the patent and sales of the remedies, so Lucy goes to Tierney & Co. for help.

Jonathan Thorne is an agent for Tierney & Co solving tricky problems like Lucy’s, but he’s not happy about his assignment to help her because Lucy is beautiful, and Thorne doesn’t need the temptation. After several years of debauchery that led to tragedy and left him a single father, Thorne tries to keep on the straight and narrow.

I really felt for Lucy, working so hard, as the neighborhood apothecary, she was basically the doctor for all that ailed the people around her.  She was talented and smart in her field, working out the throat lozenge and croup recipe, so I was outraged by the theft! I wanted Thorne to get to the bottom of it and restore the recipes back to Lucy! I feel like the matter wasn’t fully resolved and didn’t fully address the culprit’s hand in things.

I felt like there were a lot of threads in this story including women’s rights over their body, and I do appreciate that, but it felt like a lot of things going on. I feel like the pacing suffered by shoving in several issues.

The romance between Thorne and Lucy was a slow burn and I enjoyed their chemistry. Nice and unexpectedly spicy! I did get a little exasperated over the miscommunication in the end. It felt like it dragged out a bit, but I knew everything would turn out by the end.

The Love Remedy is a spinoff of Everette’s previous series, The Secret Scientists of London, a series I enjoyed as well. Athena’s Retreat, The Guardians of Domesticity and a few previous characters show up again. I look forward to the next installment, which features Sam Fenley and Lady Phoebe, a sort of villain in the previous series.

4 Stars

Excerpt:

Book Description:

When a Victorian apothecary hires a stoic private investigator to protect her business, they learn there’s only one way to treat true love—with a happily ever after.

When Lucinda Peterson’s recently perfected formula for a salve to treat croup goes missing, she’s certain it’s only the latest in a line of misfortunes at the hands of a rival apothecary. Outraged and fearing financial ruin, Lucy turns to private investigator Jonathan Thorne for help. She just didn’t expect her champion to be so . . . grumpy?

A single father and an agent at Tierney & Co., Thorne accepts missions for a wide variety of employers—from the British government to wronged wives. None have intrigued him so much as the spirited Miss Peterson. As the two work side by side to unmask her scientific saboteur, Lucy slips ever so sweetly under Thorne’s battered armor, tempting him to abandon old promises.

With no shortage of suspects—from a hostile political group to an erstwhile suitor—Thorne’s investigation becomes a threat to all that Lucy holds dear. As the truth unravels around them the cure to their problems is they must face the future together.