Review: The Potent Solution by Ashley Nova

Title: The Potent Solution

Author: Ashley Nova

Length: 355 Pages

Category: Historical Fantasy

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: Smart, suspenseful, and rife with dread, Ashley Nova’s debut novel left me hoping she has many more stories to tell. My only niggle with The Potent Solution exists in the seeming lack of copyediting, which speaks to the publisher rather than the author. Otherwise, this was such a fantastic journey through a dark and sinister London that exists solely in the author’s seemingly limitless imagination.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Charlotte Price is a mess; perpetually tardy, chronically unfocused, and indecisive to a fault.

She’d hoped that apprenticing for London’s only master alchemist and private detective would help solve her problems, but her first investigation will test her limits in ways she never imagined. On the trail of a dangerous magical drug, Charlotte’s mentor vanishes without a trace, Lost, overwhelmed, and inexperienced, she must use everything she’s learned, and improvise the things she hasn’t, as she takes on magically empowered assassins, gate-crashes a society ball, and uncovers a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of government.

Yet Charlotte’s biggest challenge is her own errant attention span, which threatens to stop the investigation in its tracks. To find her mentor and prevent disaster, she must overcome her fear of failure, trust her instincts, and learn that she has everything she needs to thrive.

Review: Charlotte Price is a whip-smart and capable heroine; she simply doesn’t realize her full potential yet. That’s where the disappearance of her mentor, Jennifer Morton, becomes significant. Not only does it allow Charlotte to practice the alchemical processes she’s learned at Jennifer’s side, but it also gives her reason to explore and hone her own talents, something Charlotte needed—whether she liked it or not. She decidedly did not.

“The thing about hate is it’s always hungry. No matter what you feed it, it will always demand more.”

The return of a past love interest, Elly Chynoweth, and the inclusion of an obnoxious aristocrat, Bryce Rosehouse, rounds out the cast of characters who help Charlotte investigate Jennifer’s disappearance, and not only who but what is behind it. The build up to the story’s unspeakable prejudice and monstrous revelations offers no few surprises, while I nerded out so geekily on the literary alchemy these characters provided to help develop Charlotte along the way. I also appreciated how Bryce’s character evolved and was eventually redeemed, and how the romantic relationship between Elly, Jennifer, and Charlotte flourished.

Smart, suspenseful, and rife with dread, Ashley Nova’s debut novel left me hoping she has many more stories to tell. Charlotte’s ADHD (though it wouldn’t have been diagnosed as such in 1834) is perfectly relatable to anyone whose mind wanders “off with the fairies” from time to time. My only niggle with The Potent Solution exists in the seeming lack of copyediting, which speaks to the publisher rather than the author. Otherwise, this was such a fantastic journey through a dark and sinister London that exists solely in the author’s seemingly limitless imagination.