Secrets abound in this gripping tale of a young woman cloistered since birth who discovers that knowledge is no subsitute for experience when she choses to follow her heart over science.Raised by her father in near isolation in the English countryside, Emilie Selden is trained as a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. In the spring of 1725, during the English Age of Reason, father and … Reason, father and daughter embark upon their most daring alchemical experiment to date—attempting to breathe life into dead matter. But when Emilie—against her father’s wishes—experiences the passion of first love, she decides to listen to her heart over her head. Banished to London and plunged headlong into a society that is both glamorous and ruthless, Emilie discovers that for all her extraordinary education she has no insight into the workings of the human heart. When she tries to return to the world of books and study, she instead unravels a shocking secret that sets her on her true journey to enlightenment.
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Slow start
The book has a unique plot, rich characters, and was told well.
Little too deep into alchemy for me…ended abruptly
A book with lots of plot twists!
A wonderful book about a girl presumably growing to maturity only to find her earlier sequestered life did not help her live in the outside world. However, her scientific training helps her become more worldly in the end. Characters are well developed and I always love reading about how women survived in historical times.
Not what I expected—psychologically complex, though a bit too romance-y in the early chapters. Historical context is good. I’d recommend it.
Loved it! I couldn’t put it down!
This is an elegantly, intelligently written story about a young woman whose scholarly world is turned completely upside down in a matter of a few short months. Emilie finds out that almost none of the people she thinks she knows including herself is who she thought them to be. Her father has secluded her in their estate and turned her into a scholar as well as his apprentice leaving her exceedingly unprepared for the real world outside their estate. Emilie struggles with the realities of that world upon her marriage and the subsequent death of her father. As the story wove on I found myself incapable of putting it down.
Very descriptive
Very capitivating. I truly couldn’t put it down. Looking for more y this Aurthor.
I loved this book.
dark and depressing
It did not hold my interest
Different twist to storyline having the heroine able to assist her husband in performing autopies. This skill enables her to solve murders.
I knew nothing of alchemy before reading this book, and quite frankly, I still understand little more of its inner workings after reading this superbly written novel. But I am not at all bothered by this.The Alchemist’s Daughter” is an exquisitely written novel which brings to life the sights and sounds of early eighteenth century London and its country suburbs. The prose is thoughtful and well written with its very believable characters and situations, and the plot moves along building momentum very skillfully. I’ll stop here. I read this gem quickly to discover the outcome, and now I will re read to truly appreciate its lush beauty.
The ending was too abrupt. Characters left hanging…
Fantastic read…. I just started a book by the same author because it was just a fabulous book
A bit too much on the science of fire, disappointed with the ending. A good story of the times with lots of period detail
It started slowly but finished well.
Emilie Selden is the daughter of Sir John Selden
And at 18 years old, she has been educated in 18th Century scientific method, and once a year in alchemy, but kept by Sir John away from society altogether. She is beautiful, brilliant by intellectual standards, but vulnerably innocent, naive. Perfect prey for grasping greed to acquire and betrayal to injure. The author creates characters who breathe, gasp, exult and suffer like the rest of us. There are the used and the users, and some redemption and reconciliation. McMahon’s research into historical events, characters, customs, and science of the era is remarkably realized in the people who look back at us from these pages.