1952 год, Лондон. Юные Джейни и Бенджамин во время прогулки в парке случайно вычисляют и обнаруживают шпиона. В попытках проследить за ним они выясняют, что шпион каким-то образом связан с отцом Бенджамина, местным аптекарем. В тот же день он внезапно исчезает, оставив им книгу под названием "Фармакопея". В ней обнаруживаются рецепты микстур, которые могут сделать человека невидимым, заставить говорить правду или превратить в птицу. Именно за этой книгой охотятся русские шпионы. "Аптекарь" - это захватывающий роман, на страницах которого в едином сюжете сплелись исторические события, мистические знания древних фармацевтов и головокружительные приключения юных сыщиков.

From the award-winning author of Half in Love and Liars and Saints, a riveting story of love, sex, secrets, guilt, and forgiveness. Maile Meloy's debut novel, Liars and Saints, captured the hearts of readers and critics alike. Now Meloy returns with a novel even more dazzling and unexpected than her first. Brilliantly entertaining, A Family Daughter might also be the most insightful novel about families and love that you will read this year. It's 1979, and seven-year-old Abby, the youngest member of the close-knit Santerre family, is trapped indoors with the chicken pox during a heat wave. The events set in motion that summer will span decades and continents, change the Santerres...

It's 1955, and Benjamin Burrows and Janie Scott are trying to live a safe, normal life in America. It's not easy, when they have the power to prevent nuclear disaster, and sinister forces are circling. Soon the advice of a mysterious, unscrupulous magician propels Janie and Benjamin into danger, and toward the land of the dead. Meanwhile, their friend Jin Lo washes up on a remote island where an American spy is stationed, and finds herself on the trail of a deadly threat in China. But she's on the other side of the world - how can Janie and Benjamin reach her? The triumphant finale in the trilogy that began with Maile Meloy's bestselling, critically acclaimed The Apothecary, and...

Two years have passed since Janie Scott last saw Benjamin Burrows, the mysterious apothecary's defiant son who stole her heart. On the other side of the world, Benjamin and his father are treating the sick and wounded in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. But Benjamin has also been experimenting with a magical new formula that allows him to communicate with Janie across the globe. When Benjamin discovers that she's in trouble, he calls on their friend Pip for help. The three friends are thrown into a desperate chase around the world to find one another, while unraveling the mystery of what threatens them all. Acclaimed author Maile Meloy seamlessly weaves together magic and adventure in...

It's 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows - a fascinating boy who's not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy. When Benjamin's father is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin must uncover the secrets of the apothecary's sacred book, the Pharmacopoeia, in order to find him, all while keeping it out of the hands of their enemies - Russian spies in possession of nuclear weapons. Discovering and testing potions they never believed could exist, Janie and Benjamin embark on a dangerous race to save the apothecary and prevent impending disaster. Together with...

In his introduction to this one hundredth volume of the beloved Best American Short Stories, guest editor T. C. Boyle writes, "The Model T gave way to the Model A and to the Ferrari and the Prius . . . modernism to postmodernism and post-postmodernism. We advance. We progress. We move on. But we are part of a tradition." Boyle's choices of stories reflect a vibrant range of characters, from a numb wife who feels alive only in the presence of violence to a new widower coming to terms with his sudden freedom, from a missing child to a champion speedboat racer. These stories will grab hold and surprise, which according to Boyle is "what the best fiction offers, and there was no shortage of...

From one of the most popular and acclaimed story writers of her generation, a single-volume short story, beautifully packaged as a palm-sized gift book. That the yellow house was thrillingly affordable might have been a warning sign, if Eleanor had known how to read it. But she d been desperate. She was sharing a room with her four-year-old daughter, Hattie, in her parents house, and she had to get out. From the award-winning novelist and short story writer Maile Meloy, "Devotion: A Rat Story"is an exquisitely unsettling tale about a young single mother whose new home becomes a kind of nightmare she must resolve on her own. Eleanor is in such a rush to move away from her parents that she...

When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor mishaps lead the families further from the ship's safety. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone. What follows is a heart-racing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children as the distraught parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their shattered lives.

Award-winning writer Maile Meloy's return to short stories explores complex lives in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared her to readers. Meloy's first return to short stories since her critically acclaimed debut, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It is an extraordinary new work from one of the most promising writers of the last decade. Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the...