Not many authors of literary fiction take a turn at writing young adult novels. Maile Meloy's Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It was one of the best short story collections I've read (I haven't read either of her previous novels). Now she has written The Apothecary, an adventure novel about a trio of fourteen year-olds who fall into a magical world of an apothecary and the ancient art/science/magic of alchemy. It is very good, although falls short of outstanding.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is its setting in postwar Britain in 1952, with a backdrop of a city still scared by bombs, suffering through rationing, and living in fear of a nuclear war. Although these themes are highlighted by the contrast with sunny California, where the narrator is from before following her blacklisted parents to London. It also does a good job capturing British public schools, a magical cockney boy named "Pip", and the world of fourteen year old children.

The magic itself is somewhere between imaginatively magical and a somewhat annoying deus ex machina that always makes books like this suffer to some degree from a combination of the improbable and the inevitable. If anything, the parts before the magic starts to reveal itself are more interesting. The adventure too moves along quickly with a series of short chapters. But it too is somewhat hackneyed and not fully satisfying, but never boring.