I quite enjoyed this book, especially the start and end of it.

Motherless, beautiful and fiercely intelligent, Emilie Seldon is raised in seclusion by her father, who aims to turn her into a brilliant alchemist and natural philosopher. But her upbringing gives her little insight into the mysteries of the human heart.

During the sultry summer of 1725, their most daring experiment yet - an attempt to breathe new life into dead matter - is disrupted by the arrival of two fascinating strangers and Emilie, caught up in the passion of first love, makes a fateful choice.
(And so on.)

I love the first half - the details of their experiments and the scientific method and all that. The middle is weird; Emilie turns into a pansy and the prose seems a but cliche'd. But the ending is good. It's very satisfying.

Picked this up today at the lunch Meetup.
Having recently read Perfume, this book interested me.

Started this book at lunchtime today.

Finished this book yesterday at lunchtime. (Monday 15)
I enjoyed the book. At times I felt sorry for Emilie, other times I felt she had ignored people when she shouldn't have.

This book was taken to the BC lunch meetup on Thursday.

Picked up at the BC meetup in Nov, then I lent to my mother and promptly forgot about it until she gave it back to me when we were in Auckland on holiday! Very enjoyable, a step above the usual historical romances. The heroine, Emilie, was raised like a hothouse flower so her character flaws are understandable. This reminded me a bit of the Sarah Waters novels I've read except heterosexual and set in the previous century, but if you like those you'd probably like this one.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left on the windowsill of Westpac Bank.