I would definitely recommend that you find incunabula_and_intercourse’s review of this book further down the page, as it is everything I wanted to say myself since about 10% through this debut. 

I wanted to like this book so badly, especially due to the fuckery it went through, but unfortunately I think Baptiste was shafted terribly by her publisher. There are the bones of a fantastic story here, but they’re weighed down by clumsy pacing, inane prose (“a seed of sob” will stay with me for a long time), and convoluted world building. An editor who cared would’ve wrangled this into the story it should’ve been, but unfortunately that was not the editor Baptiste got. So much exposition, and yet so many questions unanswered (Why was Janus never taught to brew, considering brewing is so dangerous that it could kill Venus, the family’s breadwinner, at any time? Why does

Nisha use Prospero as the face of the Golden Coin, instead of fronting it herself?

How did Venus not immediately clock the initials

GWMS

? Or that

the only health potion brewer who has a debt to her family and thus would make her a Sacrificium potion would be Brother Glenn

? Or so many other things that Venus doesn’t realize until it’s relevant to the plot.) Unfortunately, this is a miss for me but I hope to see Baptiste’s next novel get the care and love it deserves.