This book is another of my most-anticipated reads of 2022. Given my slight obsession with books that focus on the senses as a plot device (olfactory being my favorite, which is the sense this book relies on), it’s hardly a surprise that I wrote directly to the publisher in order to get early access to this title. I wasn’t going to let it slip away from me. I was focused on getting my hands on it, and I am so happy I did, because it was so good.

This book wasn’t exactly everything I hoped for, but it was dang close. Close enough to warrant the full five stars. The first-person POV narration is written as if this were a memoir written by an unreliable narrator. In this way, the book reminds me of Nabokov’s “Lolita”: you know from page one of both that classic novel and this book that your narrator is not to be trusted. They’re spinning the yarn, and you’re only getting to see what they are choosing to show you. In this book, the narrator, going by the name Vic Fowler, even breaks the literary fourth wall to speak to us readers directly, because he needs to make sure he has our attention. He’s a vain man who longs for someone to understand him or to accept him.

The perfume industry is one historically steeped in barbarism, shady experiments, and chemical experimentations I cannot even begin to understand. But I’ve always had a strong nose, even for being a girl growing up in a smoking household, and I’ve always adored perfumes (I have worn the same scent for a good many years now: Marc Jacobs Daisy). I can remember vibrantly the smell of my grandmother wearing White Shoulders, my mother wearing Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door, my prom date (and eventual assaulter) wearing Aspen, too many boys I went to high school with wearing Drakkar Noir, my ex-girlfriend and how she always smelled neutrally of Ivory soap and cigarettes, the heady and dark smell of the wall of leather floggers at Mr. S in San Francisco, and my ex-husband smelling of Ralph Lauren Polo Blue and sweat. None of my memories can compare with the in-depth and highly-descriptive words, phrases, and passages in this book not only describing scents, but describing the process of capturing nature and managing to put it into alcohol so it eventually makes its way into a glass bottle to be worn by a human.

But this book goes even further than just talking about the mainstream perfume industry, because Vic Fowler also has an off-the-books commission-only perfume business… and the commissions are definitely illegal. And that’s where this book, also like Lolita, becomes elevated to something both darker and more satirical than just your regular thriller. Because the rich can have any perfume they want, legal or illegal. But what if they want the memory of a person? They pay a perfumer whose business is on the rocks for the privilege. But what if it doesn’t stop there? What other scents or memories can their money buy? And to what lengths will out narrator allegedly go to in order to perfect his art, to meet these challenges, and to cover all of his tracks?

Donnelly obviously did her research and put hard work and devotion into this book. It shows with every page she wrote. The writing is precise, and I love morally ambiguous, unreliable narrators. Vic Fowler’s vanity is only outmatched by his narcissism. I both hate him and admire him. When he seemingly commits to a course of action he commits, but when he tells us what he’s done, I of course don’t know if he’s telling us the truth or just trying to make himself look better. That’s the beauty and the horror of an unreliable narrator. You just want things to be easy. You just want to lean into the narrative and not question it. But that’s letting the narrator seduce you. Do you really want to be that easy of a mark? I don’t, so I admire their audacity and hate them for it at the same time. It’s a much more thoughtful and satisfying read that way.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting my request to review this title.