An interesting, if sometimes uncomfortable, read.

Telling the tale of Rebecca, newly married to an Edinburgh pharmacist and set in Victorian London. It explores the clashes of scientific discoveries with Victorian morals. Told through beautiful, sensual and atmospheric prose.

Perhaps should contain a trigger warning for emotional and drug abuse, though both are handled with complete mastery.

Would definitely recommend to anyone who loves gothic or historical fiction. Also nice to read a book of this genre and calibre set outside of London.

This story is set in Victorian Edinburgh and is about Rebecca, the new wife of Alexander, a gentleman Pharmacist. Married life turns out to be very different to what Rebecca expected. Her husband is not the respectable man she thought him to be and he and his sleazy business partner begin using Rebecca as a guinea pig for their new drug, which they hope will 'correct' the behaviour of all women. However, our heroin(e) becomes wise to their plans and makes a plan to rid herself of the stuff and save herself and other women before it is too late.

A disturbing tale about the evil to which some men were prepared to sink to keep women 'in their place', and a pretty good read.

Rebecca Palmer is one of my favourite characters in historical fiction in a long time.

Recently married to pioneering pharmacist Alexander Palmer, she is a strong woman, in a world where women are not supposed to be, and most certainly not allowed to be strong.

Rebecca isn't much suited to married life, at least not married life with Alexander, whom she soon finds out has a vicious temper, a penchant for extra marital activities and some downright odd sexual fetishes and desires.

Rebecca suspects her husbands infidelity early into the marriage, but when she considers confronting him about it, she merely hints at her suspicions and her husband accuses her of hysteria.

Yet this is exactly what he wanted. For Alexander believes he has discovered a wonder drug to keep women subdued during their married lives. Heroin. At first Rebecca enjoys the sensations that the drug brings.

But before she realises what has happened she is addicted and her husband is insistent she keeps taking the drug as he is actually experimenting on his wife, alongside several other women.

Thankfully Rebecca is much smarter than her husband gives her credit for. She realises that she must get away from him when she realises the extent of his deceit. What she doesn’t take into consideration is just how hard it can be for a woman to make her mark in the world without her husband behind her...

Getting someone else hooked on a life destroying addictive drug is one of the most insidious things a person can do.

I was really excited to receive a review copy of The Pharmacist’s Wife that I read it straight away. Certain words on the blurb caught my eye; Victorian Edinburgh; pharmacy; heroin and addiction. Anything to do with Victorian Medicine and I am all over it, so to say my curiosity was piqued with a story about Victorian Pharmaceuticals set in Edinburgh, a city less than an hour away from my Glasgow home, is quite an understatement.

Having given up hopes of her childhood sweetheart, Gabriel, ever returning to her, Rebecca Palmer makes a more pragmatic life choice in her marriage to the handsome pharmacist, Alexander. She envisages her life as the pharmacist’s wife to be content and comfortable, however her dreams of married life are shattered when Alexander reveals himself to be controlling and manipulative with some strange sexual desires. When Rebecca begins to show dissent towards her husband he sees this as the perfect opportunity for experiment and decides to treat her for “hysteria” with the new wonder drug he and his partner Mr Babcock have been working one, heroin. Given to Rebecca as a salt solution to drink, Alexander surreptitiously makes notes on the seemingly positive effects the heroin has on Rebecca’s mood.

Rebecca initially enjoys the feeling heroin gives her, it alleviates her anxieties, provokes pleasant sleepy dreaminess, and a warm, fuzzy feeling of calm and contentment. It is all the more of benefit to Alexander to have Rebecca in this state, the more docile and pliable she is, the easier it is for him to carry on his secret life of debauchery. However these initial feelings do not last as the effects of the salts don’t seem to last as long and Rebecca begins to need a higher dosage to achieve that same dreamy state. When sickness seems to coincide with the times she has not had her daily dose of salts it becomes apparent that the heroin has sunk its claws deeply into Rebecca and she is now dependant on it. Although isolated, Rebecca is incredibly smart and determined and she musters up all of her inner strength to beat her addiction and achieve redemption and retribution.

The book covers a range of themes such as addiction, poverty, feminism and the stark inequality between men and women at that time. Sexual, economic, legal and psychological power all rested in the hands of men. At a time when even a normal bodily function such as menstruation is regarded a disease and it was believed that a women’s temperament could not bear as much as men.

Vanessa Tait has clearly well researched this era and paints an iconic picture of Edinburgh in the late 19th century; social standing, money, social engagements, nice clothes and servants. On the flip side of that we see brothels, disease, opium dens, prostitutes and poverty, and on occasion these two sides overlap each other. Her exquisite writing brings the Victorian era alive from the pages, and I could clearly imagine the horrific sights and smells from the underbelly of Edinburgh.

The characterisation is perfection, each individual multi-dimensional and varied. A lot of characters are not as they first seem, and I changed my opinions on them multiple times as another layer of their personality was peeled back to reveal something even more surprising. Some got under my skin so much that I was infuriated, and Rebecca understandably earned a place my heart.

This engaging, entertaining and inspiring story is a must read for fans of Historical Fiction. Thanks to the author Vanessa Tait and publisher Corvus who provided me a review copy free of charge.

Pharmacist's Wife is quite a feminist story set in Victorian Edinburgh. Our protagonist Rebecca is married to a good looking and successful Pharmacist, Alexander, and soon we learn that before they hastily married Rebecca's heart was broken by another man, Gabe.
Rebecca doesn't really know her husband well, and one day she finds a provocative red shoe in his study, thanks to her nosy friend Violet. She starts investigating her husband's private affairs.
I can say this book was a real Sex Drugs and Rock'n Roll in it's era as it goes into fetishism, drug use and abusive men, There is a promise of feminism to start but to me this failed to lead the novel as there was also unnecessary romance. It was refreshing to read a Victorian novel set in some part of Britain other than London but I failed to visualise Edinburgh, which is a shame as it is an atmospheric city. I think this novel's weakness was mostly the lack of atmosphere as I found myself mostly stuck in Rebecca's thoughts, so the setting didn't materialise.
Overall it was a nice story and started really promising but after 70% my interest in story declined a bit. Still finished, 3 stars.

I enjoyed this historical fiction book. The authors description of the places and characters are detailed and evocative. The protagonist is a strong character who you can really relate to and her story is one which you want to know and this keeps the reader engaged.

Thank you for letting me review this book.

The Pharmacist’s Wife is set in Victorian Edinburgh, a setting which interested me immediately. There are so many novels set in Victorian London, it always makes a nice change to find one set somewhere else! Although I felt that the sense of place could have been strengthened by the use of more Scottish dialect, I did like the contrasting descriptions of the Old Town and the New Town.

North Bridge, the road linking Old to New, is the location Rebecca Palmer’s husband Alexander has chosen for his new pharmacy, the Grand Opening of which is celebrated with a brass band and a performing monkey. These are exciting times for Rebecca who, as a spinster of twenty-eight, had given up hope of ever marrying anyone, let alone such a clever and distinguished man as Alexander. Almost as soon as they move into their new home, however, Rebecca is forced to question whether her husband really is the man he appears to be. She suspects him of having an affair with Evangeline, a woman from the Old Town, and when she finds a ladies’ red shoe on his desk she’s sure her suspicions have been confirmed.

Alexander doesn’t like a wife who asks questions or has too many ideas of her own and, with this in mind, he has been developing a new medicine in his laboratory above the pharmacy – a medicine which he hopes can be used to control women and which he persuades Rebecca to try by telling her it will make her happy and content. Soon Rebecca is dependent on her medicine, taking it more and more often and relying on her husband to provide it for her. It is, of course, heroin – and it seems that Rebecca is not the only woman on whom Alexander has been testing his new invention…

This is certainly a dark novel but I didn’t find it a particularly thrilling one and it wasn’t until near the end that I started to feel gripped by the story. I suppose I was expecting more from the plot; there are lots of good ideas and plenty of interesting topics are touched on, but it’s only when (without wanting to spoil too much) things begin to go less smoothly for Alexander that it becomes really compelling, in my opinion. What this book does do, very well, is explore the inequalities between men and women in 19th century society. Although Alexander is not a real person and his discovery of heroin is fictitious, he uses the drug to keep his wife quiet and submissive and to take away whatever small amount of independence and freedom she may have had. Rebecca’s situation is oppressive and frightening and as her addiction to the drug deepens it becomes difficult to see how she is going to break out of the cycle in which she has found herself.

I liked Rebecca as a character and was pleased to see that she does develop as a person as the novel progresses, but I thought the villains, Alexander and his friend Mr Badcock, were too obviously ‘villainous’ and could have been given more depth. As well as the drugs, it seems that there’s no type of cruelty or depravity of which they’re not capable! Thankfully, there are two decent male characters to balance things out slightly – Lionel, the apprentice who helps Alexander in the pharmacy, and Gabriel, Rebecca’s first love.

The Pharmacist’s Wife is an interesting novel and, as I’ve said, a very dark one. I couldn’t love it, but I would be happy to read other books by Vanessa Tait.

Vanessa Tait takes the reader into bleak and disturbing territory with this piece of 19th century historical fiction. She opens up the dark underbelly of Victorian Edinburgh in this penetrating study of obsession, drug experimentation and addiction, and gender inequality. Rebecca Palmer has given up hopes of her childhood sweetheart, Gabriel, returning to her as her more rational plans culminate in her marriage to the handsome pharmacist, Alexander. Her dreams for the kind of life she envisaged as a well to do married woman shatter, as she isforced to face an unbearable nightmarish reality when Alexander reveals himself to be a man with unsavoury secrets, warped sexual desires, vices, fetishes, an unprincipled man who thinks little of women, and betrays Rebecca with ease.

Alexander wants a wife he can belittle and control absolutely, so he is perturbed at Rebecca's wholesome enjoyment of sex. He has her on a new drug developed in his laboratory, curiously and clinically observing her reactions to it over time. This new drug is heroin, and at first, Rebecca enjoys the dreaminess, fewer anxieties and the access to her past that it provides. However, it soon has it tentacles deep into Rebecca with her growing dependency and addiction, and her experience of harrowing strange hallucinations. The unscrupulous Alexander is experimenting on others as well as his wife, with a view to profiting from heroin. His partner, Mr Babcock, turns out to have much in common with Alexander when it comes to sexual deviance, perhaps even worse. Rebecca is isolated, but she is bright and determined with an indomitable spirit, she is not going to take things lying down as she seeks atonement and vengeance. She musters up all her inner resources in her efforts to combat her addiction and settle scores with her cruel, depraved, deceitful and abusive husband.

Tait provides us a picture with the worst of men, bar the odd exceptions like Gabriel, whilst highlighting the tyranny, abuse, and horrors that women face and their lot in life. The impeccable research is apparent in the rich detailed descriptions that evoke Edinburgh, and the vibrant prose deployed is beautiful. The characterisation is wonderful, not just Rebecca, but Jenny and Eva too. A thought provoking read that captures the difficult realities of women, and their lack of rights in this period of history. I should warn readers there is disturbing and unsettling content, and sexual abuse in the novel. Recommended! Many thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC.

Although a conscious escape from ‘spinsterhood and all the humiliations that went with it’, Rebecca Palmer’s marriage to pharmacist, Alexander, is not what she anticipated. Shocked when Rebecca shows signs of sexual pleasure, Alexander chooses to interpret this as an indication of ‘unnatural’ urges that need to be controlled. It turns out he has just the drug to do it, an as yet unnamed ‘wonder drug’ that he has been developing in his laboratory above the pharmacy.

Initially the ‘medicine’ her husband prescribes (described by him as like bathing ‘an individual’s brain in a vat of contentment’) eases Rebecca’s anxieties and provokes pleasant dreams, memories of her first love, Gabriel. However, since we soon learn that this ‘wonder drug’ is heroin, unsurprisingly Rebecca finds herself increasingly dependent on the drug to get through the day. And, as events unfold, it transpires Rebecca is not the first person to have been subjected to Alexander’s ‘experiments.

With the exception of Gabriel, none of the male characters come out very well from the story. Alexander, as well as using his wife as a guinea pig for his pharmaceutical experiments, is revealed to have unusual sexual proclivities and fetishes. Alexander's friend and business partner, the aptly named Mr Badcock, is a particularly unpleasant example of manhood. Ironically, when both men eventually learn of the other’s vices, their hypocritical response is to condemn each other’s actions.

I really enjoyed the period atmosphere of the book and the descriptions of 19th century Edinburgh, including the less salubrious parts of the Old Town. ‘Here the streets were not as straight as they were in New Town. They stuttered with differently angled, differently sized houses and lurched into the alleyways as if they were drunk.’

The Pharmacist’s Wife convincingly illustrates the stages of drug dependency, with higher and higher doses needed to achieve the desired affect and the dreadful effects of addiction. It also engages with the inequality between men and women at that time. Sexual, economic, legal and psychological power all rested in the hands of men. It’s a time when even a normal bodily function such as menstruation is regarded a ‘disease’ and it was seriously believed that ‘women’s temperament...could not bear as much as men.’

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Corvus in return for an honest and unbiased review.

The Pharmacist's Wife is a thoroughly enjoyable tale of the dark side of Victorian marriage.
Set in Edinburgh in the late 18th century, it tells of newlyweds Rebecca and her pharmacist husband Alexander Palmer.
Rebecca married Alexander in a whirlwind due both to his flattery and her fear of becoming a spinster at the grand old age of 28.
Alexander married Rebecca as he was in need of a wife he could control.
Through the course of the book we incounter prostitution, sexual kinks, unrequited love, the power of the patriarchy and Alexander's new wonder drug, heroin.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dark and moody Victoriana.

I adored this book from the second chapter. I felt that the story was fast paced and i just wanted to continue with it the moment after i put it down. The story was compellingly told and i enjoyed how the mystery aspect developed with the characters. Rebecca's situation were she is stuck in a (potentially) love less marriage and her mind stuck with her abandoned lover who returned after she married. The way the relationships developed between Eve and Rebecca was fantastic and i just wanted both characters to succeed in life. This was a great Neo-Victorian mystery and i just wanted to continue in this world. It really made me want to read more by Vanessa Tait and more Victorian literature set in Scotland

It is 1869 and the Palmers run a pharmacy in Edinburgh. Alexander Palmer is an ambitious man, controlling and keen to test the effects of his new medicine, heroin, on women who he sees as the weaker sex. Rebecca Palmer, his wife, is the unwitting subject of his tests, falling deeper into addiction. However, Rebecca is tougher than Alexander gives her credit for and she fights back with unexpected consequences.

I loved the Victorian setting of this and the characters. It was really interesting to read about early experiments with heroin and the women's rights issues that are caught up in the novel. I did occasionally find it a little slow paced, but it was engagingly written.

I'd recommend this to lovers of historical fiction, especially those which explore relationships - the shifts in the balance of power between the Palmers will keep you reading.

I loved my visit to Victorian Edinburgh in the company of The Pharmacists wife. I love books set in this era, I love Edinburgh and I really enjoy books which remind me how grateful I am to be a woman in the noughties and how very different life must have been for my contemporaries around 150 years ago.

Rebecca's only chance to make a life for herself lies in marriage, albeit not to the man she loved and lost years ago, but a practical arrangement as wife to Alexander, a handsome and respectable pharmacist with a shop in Edinburgh, she is thrilled when she anticipates the possibilities her future may hold.

But she soon discovers that her new husband leaves a lot to be desired. He is dismissive of her obvious intelligence and ambition and plans to turn her into a subdued and submissive wife. She soon discovers that he has dark urges and a peculiar fetish and isn't anything like the handsome loving husband she longed for.

Life as the pharmacists wife is a lonely one and she soon manages to make a friend or two, though neither are what would be considered suitable company by polite society, being of a lower class and somewhat dubious morals.

Then Alexander begins to show his true colours and begins to experiment on his wife by subjecting her to a series of medical practises which involve pharmaceutical testing of the most dangerous kind. He introduces her to a new drug he has invented which he plans will be the solution to the insuborinate, wifely behaviour and hysteria he considers his wife to display and soon she becomes addicted to the new wonder substance, to become known as heroin!

But he has underestimated Rebeccas strength of spirit and determination.

The book takes us on a drug fuelled journey of redemption and revenge as she battles her newly created addiction and her husbands attempts to manipulate and master her.

The location is suitably dark and atmospheric and the story is gripping and engaging, I fairly rattled through it and it didn't stop keeping me entertained for moment. It's nicely fast paced yet an easy to follow and captivating read. I love books with a string female lead and this is exactly what this is, I was rooting for Rebecca all the way and loved this fascinating and illuminating work.

I really enjoyed this book, and have put it up there as one of my favourite books 2018. I know we are not yet finished January but I know when I love a book, and this one I didn’t just love, but I devoured.

Set in Victorian Edinburgh, which always excites me as I am from Edinburgh, recently married Rebecca Palmer is adjusting to married life with her pharmacist husband Alexander. When Alexander begins administering her daily salts to calm her ‘hysteria1 Rebecca begins a horrible descent into heroin addiction. It’s very easy to compare this to Trainspotting as its about heroin addiction and they are both set in Edinburgh. But whilst you can say the trace this is no Trainspotting. Rebecca’s addiction is not a choice she has made, it is a choice her husband has made under the guise of scientific research.

Other themes are woman’s disempowerment in Victorian society, a lack of female choice in Victorian Society, or at least choice for woman who are unmarried, men’s manipulation of woman and sexual desire. Rebecca is intelligent, well read and interested in current affairs, she reads the Newspaper and appears to be very up to date in current affairs. Following the Suez Crises and the Edinburgh Seven in the newspapers, and even teaching her maid to read.

Ultimately its Rebecca’s wit and intellect that saves her. I thoroughly enjoyed this and it’s an easy five stars.

Great book. Brilliant storyline and excellent main characters. I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

The Pharmacist’s Wife is an atmospheric piece of historical fiction about female empowerment, manipulation, and addiction, set in Victorian Edinburgh. Rebecca Palmer’s husband Alexander opens a pharmacy and dreams of dreams of success with his new chemical invention: heroin. At the same time, he claims that it is the perfect cure for Rebecca’s hysteria, but the drug reminds her of her lost first love and draws her into a friendship that will reveal all her husband’s sexual secrets. Soon, she is fighting to escape Alexander and his obsession, but her position as his wife doesn’t make things easy for her.

The novel is a gripping read, with a dark Victorian vibe that emphasises both the dangers of addiction and abusive men and the difficult position for women in various situations. Tait focuses on creating the right atmosphere rather than on overloading on historical or scientific material, as could happen in drier historical fiction. The narrative is interesting, particularly the abusive ways in which Rebecca and other women are manipulated by men for science and for gain, plying them with drugs to make them docile and easy to manage. Sometimes the time jumps in the narrative are a little disjointed, but overall it is a good read.

The Pharmacist’s Wife is a historical novel that looks at problems that are not gone today, including the disempowerment of women, drug addiction, and abuse, as well as touching on other areas like the treatment of sex workers. It is one for fans of dark Victorian fiction, particularly those who’d enjoy the genre with a very slight dash of Trainspotting.