The Fair Botanists: Could one rare plant hold the key to a thousand riches?

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Belle is single-minded, selfish, she tramples on those who get in her way (especially if they are men) and yet she has her own very strong moral code. The fact that this story is set in Edinburgh (one of my favourite cities) during the visit of King George IV - a setting I've written myself in A FORBIDDEN LIAISON WITH MISS GRANT - made me even more inclined to like it. It longs for you to know, to understand, every single idea that ever crossed the author’s mind with regards to the plot (such as there is one), the setting, the character’s backstories, thought, and actions, and it is so anxious to ensure that not a single detail is missed that it tells you everything.

It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. This was the heyday of botanical exploration around the world that we were coming into with the expansion of the British Empire.Sara has been named one of the Saltire Society’s 365 most influential Scottish women, past and present. Again, I know that's not necessarily true to the era, so maybe I'm being unfair - but I find the more I like a book the more I am enjoying the characters, the more harshly I judge them. This is the early days of the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and various people are interested in the flowers and plants for various reasons. I found the friendship between Elizabeth and Belle a little forced possibly because it happens rather hastily and Elizabeth is far more muted and indistinct than go-getting Belle.

Each character is richly drawn and full of life, and though Belle was undoubtedly my favourite, Mhairi also stands out as a strong, colourful woman. All of the characters, including Mr McNab (the head gardener), his son James, Clementina our ageing gossip and the King’s right hand man, Johann, are all brilliantly developed. Sheridan’s writing transports the reader to Georgian Edinburgh and the sights and smells of a city that is changing and growing by the day.

I’m grateful I had the chance to fling away to Edinburgh back then, in 1822, at a time of cultural brilliancy and great change. I really enjoyed the convergence of all of these storylines, and the ramifications of what happens to the flower. We have closed Reek now, but quite a bit of our stuff has been collected by the National Museum of Scotland and the Glasgow Women's Library," she says.

As the story progressed I found myself being drawn more and more into the story of the characters, they are, as I mentioned a wonderful. Putting aside the fact that we didn’t need to know what Mhairi had for breakfast (or the manner in which her breakfast is served – this description goes on for a while), she is also currently not breaking her fast. It’s doesn’t trample on ahead at a rate of knots so you get lost in the plot, but equally it isn’t slow and difficult to get through.It’s around this extraordinary moment in Edinburgh history – and the historic visit of George IV to the city later that summer, which led to what became known as the “Daft Days” of runaway royalist enthusiasm. Creatives often approach the world with different ways of interacting and for me perfume is one of those. While the author’s note makes it clear that the story was designed to be ‘light-hearted… but catch[ing] the spirit of the city at this fascinating time in history’, the end result of this overabundance of lightness is a plot so thin and pale that it vanishes the moment you blink. Independent minded and ambitious, she is prepared to pursue a life of pleasure without concern for social conventions.