The Botanist's Daughter
Author: Kayte Nunn
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Release date: August 2018
Pages: 387 pages
R.R.P: $29.99
Discovery. Desire. Deception.
A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower.
In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father's quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family.
In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a sketchbook of dazzling watercolours, a photograph inscribed 'Spring 1886' and a small bag of seeds. It sets her on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons.
My Review
Thoughts on the book: The Botanist's Daughter is the new botanical novel from Kayte Nunn which is told in the past and present by Elizabeth (from the past) and Anna (present day). The novel (told from the POV of Anna, Elizabeth and later another voice which I don't want to ruin) centres around a mysterious box that Anna finds while renovating her grandmother Gussie's house that she inherited after she passed away. After opening the box and finding the secret compartment, Anna is lead on the journey of a lifetime discovering the identity of who owns the secret box and also discovering more about herself than she ever thought possible. As for who owns the box well that would be our second POV Elizabeth who is on the journey of her life trying to race to complete her father's work, finding a dangerous flower that could end up being the most life-saving plant around, before her father's enemy finds it first. Her journey takes her and her maid Daisy from Corneall to Chile where she is constantly in danger of being discovered and must stay one step ahead of everyone. But when both Anna and Elizabeth find love will they both get the answers they so desperately want or will they risk it all for love?
A massive thank you to Alana from Hachette for reaching out to me about The Botanist's Daughter and inviting me to be apart of this blog tour. I love when I get emails about a book that I haven't hear too much buzz about and decide to give it a go and I am always presently surprised. Although I am still very much a YA fan I am finding I am branching out more into other genres and it's not going too badly. The Botanist's Daughter was one of these books that I hadn't heard too much about but thought it sounded really interesting so I decided to accept the invitation to read, review, be a part of the blog tour and send through questions for Kayte Nunn to answer and boy am I so glad that I did.
The fact that I got to go on not one but two journeys, told in the past and the present made The Botanist's Daughter a very big winner for me, but the clincher was that the story was based around finding a rare and dangerous flower and the mystery of the box and that romance was an afterthought. It seems like most books these days have the story based around a big romance and that what you thought the book would actually focus on is actually an afterthought and not as front and centre as the romance is. I loved the mystery of who the box belonged to and how it came to be in Anna's house, although I worked it out pretty early on I was still intrigued to find out what happened and was not expecting it to happen the way that it did. I couldn't hold back the tears as I read the last 60 pages and I really didn't want the story to end despite learning basically all there was to learn but that ending killed me. I can't wait to read more by Kayte Nunn in the future
Rating: 4/5
Keep an eye out on my blog next week for my Q&A with Kayte Nunn
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