The Alchemist's Daughter

I by turns liked and cringed at this historical novel by Katharine McMahon, the story of Emilie Selden, who we first meet as a girl at her father's isolated estate. Raised by her father in his image as a natural philosopher and alchemist during the 18th century, a time when women rarely received such an education, Emilie sadly lacks any knowledge of people and the wider world. Therefore it is no surprise that the first handsome man from London who comes along (when she's a very young 19) sweeps her off her feet and onto her back in the woods in no time.

Of course they marry, and Emilie goes with him to London where she sees how little she knows of anything that's useful for survival in her husband's rich/tawdry/immoral world. After her father dies and she and her husband inherit the estate, she finds out even more about herself and the world in which she was raised, a world that she never really saw in it's true light.

Emilie was a difficult character for me, sometimes witty and likeable, sometimes incredibly selfish. Book smart - but not literary - and often without any regard for the impact of anything on anyone except herself. But McMahon's writing is beautiful, and she evokes a real Gothic feeling that made the novel hard to put down.

The Alchemist's Daughter