The Apothecary

A mysterious apothecary.
A magic book.
A missing scientist.
An impossible plan.

It's 1952 and the Scott family has moved unexpectedly from Los Angeles to London. Janie feels uncomfortable in her strange new school, until the local apothecary promises her a remedy for homesickness. But the real cure is meeting the apothecary's son Benjamin, a curiously defiant boy who dreams of becoming a spy.

Benjamin's father is no ordinary apothecary, and when he's kidnapped, Benjamin and Janie find themselves entrusted with his sacred book, the Pharmacopoeia. And it seems that Russian spies are intent on getting their hands on it.

What secrets does the book contain? Who is the Chinese chemist Jin Lo? And can they trust a skinny pickpocket called Pip to help them?

Discovering transformative elixirs they never imagined could exist, Janie and Benjamin embark on a dangerous quest to save the apothecary and prevent an impending nuclear disaster.

The Apothecary sparkles with life and possibility. This is a story that will delight kids and return not-so-young readers to the magic of childhood.

About The Author

Maile Meloy is the award-winning author of the short story collections Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It and Half in Love, and the novels Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter.

Note from Maile:

As a kid, I was a reader above all else, and was happiest sprawled sideways across an armchair with a book. I read and re-read D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths until the words and the illustrations were burned in my brain. I was home sick when I read Treasure Island, and I can still feel the chill and horror of the Black Spot. A Wrinkle in Time became battered and waterlogged when I took it down a river, reading it in the raft, ignoring the scenery. I loved the possibilities in the books, the idea that anything could happen. You could travel through time as easily as an ant stepping from one end of a piece of thread to the other, if the ends were simply brought together. You could walk through a wardrobe into another world.

That’s one of the reasons writing The Apothecary has been such a joy. I got to enter, again, into that pre-adult world in which nothing is ruled out. If you allow for the possibilities, and don’t let preconceptions get in the way of your belief and desire, amazing things can happen. It’s a book about a boy confronting his destiny, and about a girl finding an extraordinary new life and about an apothecary who wants to free the world from the looming threat of nuclear disaster. He isn’t an ordinary apothecary, and, through him, Janie and Benjamin discover that things like invisibility and flight are entirely possible.

Nothing could make me happier than introducing you to Janie and Benjamin, and to Ian Schoenherr’s beautiful illustrations. I hope spending time with them gives you as much pleasure as it’s given me.

Very best,
Maile Meloy