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

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Jon tries to understand what has happened to him, and the danger he now seems to present to those who love him. “If I can figure out what he did and how he did it, maybe I can fix it,” he says. Kepnes shifts the narrative between Jon, his only friend, Chloe, who is desperate to find him when he vanishes again, and Detective Charles “Eggs” DeBenedictus, who believes there’s a link to the series of sudden deaths on his beat. Providence is compelling, and Kepnes provides a sometimes piercing insight into the small, strange, sad details that make up a life, though without quite achieving the deep, dark pleasures of You. You love the research process for your novels. Was there anything you learned during your research for The Fair Botanists that surprised you? Elly Griffiths' The Crossing Places features an overweight, cat-loving detective who lives on the Norfolk coast. Like so much new crime fiction the setting is as much part of the point as the plot, writes stpauli: So when I created the character of Belle Brodie she was a high-class courtesan but she had the same fascination as I do for smell. Though her interest is in whether she can manipulate people’s behaviour through scent. And yes you can! This tied in with the Georgian fascination for potions – like magic. In fact in 1824 in Edinburgh there was a real-life case of two shop boys who mixed a ‘love potion’ and gave it to a girl. It’s not an uncommon story though looking at that case, it seems more like a ‘rhohypnol’ episode than the grand plan that Belle undertakes. Are there other women from Enlightenment Edinburgh that you’d like to explore in fiction? Or you’d like to see other writers or film makers portray?

The Fair Botanists - Historical Novel Society

It’s the summer of 1822 and Edinburgh is abuzz with rumours of King George IV’s impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly-installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower – an event that only occurs once every few decades. So many things! I learned a lot about the sex trade in the city during the Georgian period, which was legion! And the way the legal system dealt with (mainly female) sex workers. In that there are echoes that reverberate today into the way women are treated by our culture in the process of rape cases. The patriarchy is still at it! Brighton,1957: Mirabelle Bevan can’t resist a cry for help, be it the little girl at a seaside sanatorium who is getting bullied or the strange behaviour of Uma, the Indian nurse who is looking after her. Intrigued she soon finds herself drawn into a spider’s web of connections between an upmarket brothel, local priest Father Grogan, a man’s body washed up on Brighton beach and a missing nursing sister.And yet I feel encouraged being in Britain to tell people about our produce, and give them some insight into our way of farming. Her first book, Truth or Dare, featured in the Sunday Times Top 50 and was nominated for the Saltire Prize. In 2015 Sara was named one of the Saltire Society’s 365 most influential Scottish women, past and present. She sits on the Committee of the Society of Authors in Scotland and is also on the board of the UK-wide writers’ collective ‘26’, taking part in the acclaimed 26 Treasures project in 2010 at the V&A, in 2011 at National Museum of Scotland and in 2012 at the Children’s Museum, Bethnal Green. The first person narrative that Lee espoused has become so ubiquitous that the ever-perceptive stpauli was surprised to find a crime debut told through a third person, present tense narrative. Expecting to be irritated by it, she found herself pleasantly surprised to the extent of recommending it as a good holiday read.

Review of ‘The Fair Botanists’ by Sara Sheridan – Just

Chapters end with lines such as: “Clare… I’ve got some terrible news.” Graveyards loom through windows. Horrified at what’s going on, Clare reveals to a friend: “I keep thinking I’m in a book.” “You always think that,” she is told with a sniff. It was also lovely to explore the connections in my home town – so much of the built environment in Edinburgh is still there, though the city boundary used to be at the Water of Leith. I was also surprised at the level of industry along the water– one of Scotland’s biggest distilleries was at Canonmills and I have one character in the book who works there… I’ve always been an equal rights campaigner. I think writing Where are the Women? in 2018 radicalised me though! I knew many of the stories I told already, even I was blown away by the scale on which we have forgotten female achievement over the centuries simply because we have consistently neglected to properly memorialise it. Inserting over a thousand women’s stories into our real life environment (both rural and urban) was an absolute honour – even if the monuments were mostly imaginary. In Fair Botanists one of the big pleasures was creating a world where women were included, so when someone reaches for a book I made the decision that the writer would be female (and not only Jane Austen, thank you!), if a market gardener were to be consulted, it was a woman, if a song were sung, it was written by a woman. Because it’s not that women didn’t do these things and weren’t known in their own time – it’s only that we’ve forgotten!Doha Asous is an olive farmer from a village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. She is in Britain for Fairtrade Fortnight to talk about agriculture in Palestine and to promote local produce – olives and their oil, as well as other typical foods, such as dates. Here she describes life in her village during the recent violence between Palestinian locals and Jewish settlers. Charged with a mission by the Empress of Brazil, celebrated writer and the toast of Georgian London, Maria Graham sets off for England with the Brazilian civil war at its height. Newly widowed and a woman travelling alone, the stakes are high and when she accepts roguish smuggler Captain James Henderson’s offer of passage on his ship, she gets more than she bargains for. This is what we fear. Look, I don’t hate Israel, and want a two-state solution. And I certainly do not hate Israelis or Jews. It is the settlers who are the problem – uncontrolled, with the Israeli army, supposedly there to protect us, usually turning a blind eye. Armed with an enjoyably sharp detective, Harbinder Kaur – the sort of woman who responds to being asked: “Who put you in charge?” with the line: “Let’s assume I am… It’ll make things easier” – Griffiths overlaps perspectives, timelines and narrators, producing a darkly funny, enjoyable mystery.

Review | The Fair Botanists - SecretWorldOfaBook

I look after about 700 olive trees around the valley. But I and others with groves have lost about 70% of them in the past five years. Some were taken by settlers; others have just been made impossible to cultivate.The whole of Edinburgh waits with baited breath for the American aloe plant to flower. The fate of the characters rests on the successful outcome of the plant. Mr McNab up to his knees in debt is relying on the sale of the aloe’s seeds to feed and clothe his family. Miss Brodie whose current ladies bathing oil is a roaring success at the apothecary; is relying on the aloe’s flowers as the secret ingredient to the success of her new love potion. Elizabeth is relying upon the aloe’s blooms to symbolise and herald hope and happiness for her future. Add into the mix the impending arrival of King George III, everyone pulls together to try to make the visit triumphant and perhaps bring fresh, new and much needed investors to the Botanical Gardens. Your work always shines a light on women’s stories that history has overlooked. How have these stories shaped your thinking about our shared history? This is a great question. I suppose historical fiction is an exciting vehicle to explore our own time. You can’t understand where you are or make good decisions about where you’re going if you can’t see where you’ve come from. So it’s that. Good historical fiction allows you to make that connection on a visceral level – it’s a time machine. An occasional journalist and blogger, Sara has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and blogged for the Guardian and the London Review of Books. She is a member of the Historical Writers Association and the Crime Writers Association and occasionally mentors for the Scottish Book Trust. In the summer of 1822, amasses of trees seem to move through Edinburgh town centre, ready to root themselves in the new, sumptuous Botanical Gardens. Mr McNab runs the glorious gardens and is especially proud of the rare Agave Americana aloe that looks set to flower – an event which only occurs once in a century. Elizabeth, newly widowed and ready for a new adventure, arrives at the house of Clementina, her late husband’s aunt. She is soon drawn towards the beauty and allure of the Botanical Gardens and as a keen artist she positions herself as the flower’s official portrait maker. Belle Brodie is a high-end courtesan who has a secret passion for botany and the art of perfume creation. She hopes to create the perfect love potion that will cement her fortune. Will the Botanical Gardens give both women a fresh sense of purpose? Or will their secrets lay them exposed and bare?