I found her kindness towards her late husband’s cousin, the eccentric Lady Clementina, very touching. But her own desirability won’t last forever, and Belle must secure her financial future by perfecting her understanding of the role plants play in the art of perfumery. One of the things I’m interested in just now is the differences between Edinburgh and Glasgow and where those differences came from. We follow two women: one a courtesan and amateur perfume maker and one a botanical artist and lady's companion.

It's an Edinburgh which is recognisable to me and yet a growing Edinburgh with so many landmarks not yet part of the cityscape. Good historical fiction allows you to make that connection on a visceral level – it’s a time machine. Description of the Enlightenment city and what was life back then made me picture it all in vivid colours and I was happy to recognize the historical figures, events and places our guide told us about, as well as to learn new facts about Edinburgh's botanic garden which I saved in my bucket list for the next visit to Scotland.

The Fair Botanists is Sara Sheridan’s combined tribute to the legacy of women’s history and Edinburgh and takes readers back to the tail end of the Enlightenment in the city. The pace of this book is excellent and held well throughout the book – even with the more exciting goings on that occur later on. So when I created the character of Belle Brodie she was a high-class courtesan but she had the same fascination as I do for smell.

Added into the mix is Belle Brodie, granddaughter of an aristocrat who is empowering other women through the use of scented oils (what wouldn’t she give to see what that agave smells like? It tells you how to feel about it instead of letting you determine this yourself, and this pattern of telling instead of showing only continues when you open the cover.This is a historical fiction story, it has some romance, and also some mystery as there are things that occur. Although I enjoyed the book and appreciated the atmosphere of anticipation it never completely hooked me, despite my interest in the central protagonists of Elizabeth and Belle, because I only ever felt superficially involved with their dilemmas. There is excitement in the city as large trees and plants of various sorts are gradually moved to their new home. There’s a plant, an Agave Americana that is set to flower and may people are interested in the seeds.

Everything in this story is laid out in such painfully over-described lists that there is absolutely nothing to maintain suspense – by attempting to show us the point of view and thoughts of every single character there is nothing left for us as readers to puzzle through or chew on. Other characterisations were well done, apart from Elizabeth who came out a bit too naive, I thought I was put off by the present-tense narrative, but that's just a personal opinion. Everything is told to you, everything is narrated, and every single character gets their turn on the point of view.Not quite once in a hundred years, but three decades at least so this was a huge event on any botany fan’s calendar. Set against some real historical events, and featuring important figures of the time, such as Sir Walter Scott, it’s a really fascinating read,which had me cheering on the female protagonists and some of the men who support them. It's engagingly written, compelling, lucid and surprising, with a memorable cast of characters and a social vision of an Edinburgh caught up in the Hanoverian ascendancy, which it has never completely left behind. A grave Irishman from Donegal, he considers himself lucky to be employed by the Garden rather than on a building site, but his uncle is head gardener at a big house near Stranraer and managed to secure him the position.