Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Nestled between steel skyscrapers lies a small shop stocked with old magic and experimental elixirs. This cozy historical romantic fantasy debut is a tale of mistaken identity, reluctant partnership, and the quiet, transformative magic of being truly seen—on and off the page.
Josephine Pinova doesn’t believe in fate. Yet, it must be fate when she walks into one of the last magical apothecaries in the city and they offer her a job after she’s just been fired.
Struggling against a tide of anti-magic sentiment amidst the city’s rapid industrialization, the shop is slated to close in six short months unless Josie can save it. Luckily, she’s no stranger to impossible odd—she’s applying to study magic at the local university, something women are typically excluded from—even as the shop’s prickly apothecarist, Aufidius Reid, seems determined to dislike her.
Reid finds her unbearably insistent. She finds him infuriatingly uptight—nothing like the sensitive scholar Josie has been exchanging anonymous letters with as they study together for entrance to a graduate magic program. A scholar who just so happens to be Reid himself, unbeknownst to either of them.
Letter by letter, they fall in love. But at work, Josie and Reid clash constantly about the direction of the business. As pressure rises, they discover the threat to the shop is more dangerous than they could have ever imagined, and working together to save it might be their only chance at true purpose, and at each other.
My Review
Okay so Letters from the Last Apothecary is one of those books that I kept almost loving.
The setup is fantastic: a struggling magical apothecary in an increasingly industrialized city, anonymous pen pals unknowingly falling in love, and a magic system built around the tension between structured and intuitive magic. Josie was easily my favorite part of the book. She’s smart, ambitious, and knows exactly what she wants. I found myself rooting for her immediately! I also really enjoyed the slow burn romance. I know some readers were frustrated by how long it took Josie and Reid to figure out they were each other’s pen pals, but honestly, it really worked for me.
My biggest issue is that the book tries to pull too many threads at once. Industry vs. tradition, sexism, immigration, religion, university, politics, competing philosophies of magic, and eventually a mafia murder mystery all compete for page time. None of these ideas were bad, but there are just so many of them that none feel fully explored. The book starts off fairly cozy and then around the halfway point, the story takes a sharp turn into the mafia plotline. I think the mafia murder plotline could have worked (I mean, Tressport is inspired by 1910s Chicago, it could have been so cool!) if it had been introduced much earlier in the book.
Overall, Letters from the Last Apothecary is a perfectly enjoyable cozy-ish fantasy with a unique magical premise, a charming heroine, and an earned slow burn romance. I just wish it had trusted its strongest ideas and given them more room to breath.
THE GOOD:
- The structured magic vs. intuitive magic conflict is one of the most unique magical concepts I’ve seen in a while
- Josie is a fun protagonist: smart, driven, knowledgeable, and knows exactly what she wants
- The anonymous pen pal romance is charming
- The slow burn pacing actually makes sense for the story being told
- The industrialized fantasy setting feels fresh and underutilized compared to the usual medieval-inspired fantasy worlds
- A quick, easy read that moves at a steady pace
THE NOT-AS-GOOD:
- Reid feels underdeveloped compared to Josie and never really grows as a character
- The book tackles too many themes at once, leaving most of them only partially explored
- The mafia murder mystery arrives around the halfway point and feels disconnected from the first half of the story
- The magic system is fascinating, but a little difficult to understand
- I’m still waiting for someone to explain Reid’s mysterious white streak of hair
- There was a weird religious element throughout the book…this was not expected from any of the descriptions, with frequent references to scripture, baptisms, and religious teachings. I don’t find religion to be particularly cozy.
THE NEUTRAL:
- Despite the marketing comparisons, this didn’t give me Emily Wilde vibes…nothing wrong with that, I just didn’t feel like the comp was accurate
- Readers looking for a purely cozy fantasy should know the book takes a turn in the second half
- If you’re a fan of very slow burn romance, you’ll probably enjoy how long the pen pal reveal takes
- There are interesting ideas about industrialization, discrimination, sexism, and social change…even if I wanted the book to dig deeper into them.
OVERALL RATING: ⭐⭐⭐
Letters from the Last Apothecary is a quick, cozy-ish romantic fantasy with a fascinating magic system, a heroine worth rooting for, and a slow burn romance that works. I just wish it had followed fewer threads and given its strongest ideas more room to breathe.
PERFECT FOR:
- Readers who love slow burn, anonymous pen pal romances
- Anyone interested in unique magic systems
- Readers who enjoy historical fantasy with industrial-era settings
- Fans of ambitious heroines fighting their way into spaces not built for them
- People who like romantic fantasy that’s more sweet than spicy
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