Book Review: “A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons” by Kate Khavari
Håfa adai! Welcome to my review of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons, the first book of the Saffron Everleigh Mystery series by Kate Khavari.
This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.
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Spoiler-Free Plot Summary
It’s the spring of 1923 and Saffron Everleigh, the first woman to be hired as a research assistant at the University College London, is eager to make a name for herself in the discipline of botany separate from that of her father’s. But the male-dominated field is filled with men holding on to antiquated notions of a woman’s intellectual abilities. Saffron hopes she can make a better impression among her colleagues when she attends a party for the department of botany. Amidst continued inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances from older colleagues, something horrible happens at the party: Mrs. Henry, the wife of a botany professor, is poisoned. And the only suspect that the police have their eyes on is Saffron’s mentor, Dr. Maxwell.
But Dr. Maxwell’s own research simply does not support the claim that a poison that deadly can be produced by the plant he has in his possession. What would he stand to gain from poisoning her? And was Mrs. Henry the intended target or did she get caught in the crossfires of an attempt to poison someone else? Saffron Everleigh teams up with fellow research assistant Alexander Ashton to solve the mystery and find out who is really behind the insidious poisoning of Mrs. Henry. As their investigation goes on, they realize that chasing down clues is not the only thing they want to do together.
Important Trigger Warning for A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons
Chapter 21 of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons contains a series of scenes depicting physical violence and threats of sexual assault. These scenes can be skipped without losing too much context or information for the remainder of the book. If these are scenes that cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please make sure to take necessary steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.
My Thoughts on A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons: 4 stars
Kate Khavari’s A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons was the September 2024 title selected by the book club I am a member of. To be completely honest, my attention was immediately grabbed when I saw the beautiful cover on this book. And I was excited to suggest this to my book club because it touches on many of the genres we are fans of, including historical fiction, murder mystery, and science.
A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons takes place in 1923 England, set primarily within the University College London’s department of botany. The true-to-life sexism that Saffron Everleigh faces as a woman in science in the 1920s is infuriatingly relatable to women in science in the 2020s. As a plant lover and gardening enthusiast, I could not get enough of the real-life and fantasized botanical worldbuilding of this story. At the end of the book, author Kate Khavari gives a bit more detail to what is the fictionalized part of this historical fiction, including the culprit plant species and the amazing greenhouses described on the University College London’s campus.
There is quite a large cast of characters in A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons. To avoid giving away too much, I will only talk about four of them: Saffron Everleigh, Saffron’s mentor Dr. Maxwell, her roommate Elizabeth, and her colleague Alexander Ashton. Saffron Everleigh, our protagonist and series namesake, is the first female research assistant to be employed at the University College London. She is assertive and tenacious. She does make a stupid decision that had me internally screaming at her, but she does apply what she learned from that choice later on in the story.
Dr. Maxwell is Saffron Everleigh’s mentor and the scholar for whom she is a research assistant in botany at the University College London. He is also the sole suspect in the poisoning of Mrs. Henry. Saffron Everleigh simply cannot believe it. Amidst the unwanted and gross experiences Saffron has day to day among the other scholars, Dr. Maxwell is one of the few she can truly trust. And she will do her best to protect her mentor and clear his name.
Saffron’s lifelong friend and roommate is Elizabeth. Saffron had fallen in love with and was engaged to Elizabeth’s brother but, tragically, he was one of the nearly 10 million soldiers lost in WWI. By 1923, Saffron and Elizabeth still maintain a strong sisterly bond. Elizabeth is even supportive of Saffron as she contemplates her growing romantic interest in Alexander Ashton. Elizabeth is not just a throwaway second female character in the story though. It is because of her instincts and persistence that Saffron and Alexander do not become the next victims of murder.
Alexander Ashton is a WWI combat veteran and a newly hired research assistant in botany at the University College London. He is also set to join the other scholars on an upcoming expedition to the Amazon. He respects Saffron as a colleague from the start, and grows an attraction towards her over time once they partner to find the real culprit behind Mrs. Henry’s unfortunate poisoning.
A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons is told by a third-person narrator who primarily alternates between the perspectives of Saffron Everleigh and Alexander Ashton, with a brief perspective from Elizabeth in the third act. Saffron Everleigh’s experiences center her entering the world of botany as a professional and a researcher following in her father’s footsteps. But, of course, her experiences include utterly gross and unwanted sexual advances from those who are supposed to professionals. I appreciate Kate Khavari’s portrayal of this sort of behavior. These are real experiences still had by women in the sciences 100 years after the fictitious events of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons, and they should be called out.
Alexander Ashton’s perspective includes his difficulty of managing PTSD from his combat experience in WWI while becoming a budding scholar in botany. He is respectful and understanding of Saffron’s experiences in the academe thus far, even though he does put his foot in his mouth and—understandably—receives reprimand from Saffron in response. There were moments of racism that make sense coming from the mouths of older white scholars of the 1920s. I did not expect Saffron Everleigh herself to call out her older colleagues—she is a young woman surrounded by older and more domineering men in an entirely male-dominated discipline—but I do wish they were called out by Alexander Ashton. That would have clearly communicated to the reader that even in the 1920s there were people not okay with that sort of mentality and would have added a layer to why Alexander Ashton, a young white man, is not entirely liked or trusted by the older white men in his discipline.
My overall rating for Kate Khavari’s A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons is 4 out of 5 stars. I truly enjoyed this book. Kate Khavari poignantly presents experiences that are all too familiar to women in the sciences or the academe (or any profession)—inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances, gross assumptions about how we progress, infantilization, not being taken seriously, being ignored or overlooked—in a classic “who done it” murder mystery. It is a bit formulaic without being entirely predictable; I was truly surprised by who did it. A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons is a great pick for those new to the murder mystery genre as well as lifelong fans of the genre’s historical classics.
Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari.
Rating Cheat Sheet
4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.
Post Date: 23 September 2024
Published: 7 June 2022
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
