There were hints that things were going to happen further into the book, but my patience ran out about halfway through. Perhaps if we knew more it would tell us something about the character, but it doesn’t – we are instead left with this vague feeling of authorial smugness, as though Sheridan is showing off just how much she knows and we don’t. Su instagram literario es la mar de interesante, porque además de recomendar libros, invita a personas relacionadas con los argumentos del libro a dar pequeñas conferencias, y es muy entretenido. While the author’s note makes it clear that the story was designed to be ‘light-hearted… but catch[ing] the spirit of the city at this fascinating time in history’, the end result of this overabundance of lightness is a plot so thin and pale that it vanishes the moment you blink.

Por un lado, tenemos el traslado del antiguo Jardín Botánico de la ciudad a su nueva ubicación (un prodigio en sí mismo), por otro, una posible visita real, y por último (y no por ello menos importante), la floración de una rara flor tropical que será el hilo conductor de todas las historias. I was hooked by the mystery and the secrets, engaged by the historical references and the social issues hinted at, charmed by the flowers and the perfumes, entertained by the lively style, titillated by the romantic liaisons. 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.I like a novel where location is as big a character as the people and Edinburgh really lends itself to that. This vibrant and original novel will transport you straight back to Georgian Edinburgh and the creation of its famous Botanic Gardens, as this vivid and extremely likeable cast of characters wait patiently for the Agave Americana plant to flower. Sheridan’s habit of over-describing, which comes through clearly in this line, is omnipresent throughout the book as well.

Now, I won’t say that nothing happens, because events do certainly take place, but the plot crawls along at a snail’s pace, without even giving you the courtesy of wondering what sort of snail it is based on its shell. It longs for you to know, to understand, every single idea that ever crossed the author’s mind with regards to the plot (such as there is one), the setting, the character’s backstories, thought, and actions, and it is so anxious to ensure that not a single detail is missed that it tells you everything. In short, if you found this review to be over-long and dragged-out, then you will find The Fair Botanists to be just as bad.Elizabeth is a widow moving to Edinburgh to live with her husband’s family, and hoping for a better life. The early 19C was a time of many changes in Edinburgh, including the move of richer residents from the medieval Old Town to Craig's expanding New Town.

I loved the bold brave women at its heart and was captured by the sense of their historical moment when different futures were becoming possible for those who dared to reach for them. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Elizabeth, who is newly widowed (and somewhat relieved to be), who has come to Edinburgh to make a new life dependent upon a relative. As the story progressed I found myself being drawn more and more into the story of the characters, they are, as I mentioned a wonderful.

Lush, seductive and scandalous, this is a romantic tale of two intriguing women and their evolving friendship. I don't mean I wanted her to take up Belle's profession, but I wanted her to have a bit more of Belle's gumption. Georgian Edinburgh’s botanical circles are gripped by the high excitement of the imminent blooming of the exotic and incredibly rare Agave Americana plant – an event which only occurs once in several decades – in the Botanic Garden Glasshouse. Clementina is her dead husband's aunt, an outlandish (I love that word) woman who her nephew wishes to keep hidden away, outspoken and overtly political. Ella es una viuda "rescatada" de la incipiente pobreza en la que la ha dejado su marido, y a la que su sobrino acoge a condición de que cuide a una familiar mayor y algo senil (Lady Clementina), otra de las protagonistas más divertidas de la novela.Everything is told to you, everything is narrated, and every single character gets their turn on the point of view. It tells you how to feel about it instead of letting you determine this yourself, and this pattern of telling instead of showing only continues when you open the cover. A wonderful story and an ode to Edinburgh, the Botanic gardens and all those who worked in this world, especially the women.