Discoveries: Maile Meloy

By Susan Salter ReynoldsNovember 19, 2011

Discoveries: Maile Meloy

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

MAILE MELOY SAYS IT'S FOR AGES ten and up, and I think that includes 52. This delightful secret garden of a novel contains all of your favorite things. It's as if Meloy put London, L.A., potions, mysterious old shops, great books, adventure, and the glimmer of young love in a jar and shook it up. One spoonful and you're in. Janie Scott, the novel's heroine, is a combination of Scout (from To Kill a Mockingbird) and Lucy (from the Chronicles of Narnia). She is spunky and imaginative and wise beyond her years. She teams up with Benjamin Burrows (the apothecary's son) to protect the book that holds the cure for everything, including homesickness. What a romp! What a lark! 


 


 


 

LARB Contributor

Susan Salter Reynolds is a book critic and writer who lives in Los Angeles and Vermont. She has three children: Sam, Ellie, and Mia.

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