Maile Meloy Books in Order

Fourteen stories follow people facing intimate conflicts across American small towns and other settings. Love, violence, risk, and loss unsettle everyday relationships, revealing how apparently modest choices can reshape the lives of those who make them.

The Catholic Santerre family's life in California unfolds from the Second World War to the millennium. Across generations, concealed truths, religious convictions, and personal tragedies test the family's relationships and the stories its members tell themselves.

Seven-year-old Abby Santerre's bout of chicken pox during a 1979 heat wave begins a story spanning generations and continents. Returning to the family from Liars and Saints, the novel examines the consequences of its hidden desires and secrets.

In 1952 London, fourteen-year-old Janie befriends Benjamin, the son of a mysterious apothecary. When his father disappears, they investigate an ancient book of transformative elixirs while trying to keep its secrets from Russian spies.

Two years after meeting Benjamin, Janie suspects a powerful man has stolen her chemistry project. Meanwhile, Benjamin experiments with an elixir that connects their distant worlds, drawing the friends into a chase across the Pacific.

Janie and Benjamin hope for an ordinary life in 1955 America, but a magician draws them toward the land of the dead. Across the world, their friend Jin Lo investigates a deadly threat in China.

A holiday cruise turns disastrous when children disappear during an excursion in Central America. Their parents struggle with blame and lost control, while the children face danger and discover unexpected abilities away from adult protection.

An octopus enjoys life in his undersea cave until a diver captures him for an aquarium. Food and artificial activities cannot replace the ocean, and the increasingly restless animal begins longing for freedom and home.

Eleven stories, mostly set in the American West, follow lawyers, ranchers, doctors, and families facing difficult emotional choices. Everyday encounters expose conflicts between loyalty and desire, security and risk, and what people have and want.

Single mother Eleanor moves with her four-year-old daughter into an inexpensive yellow house, hoping for a fresh start. Their neighbor’s enormous pet rats unsettle the household, turning an ordinary domestic arrangement into a disturbing confrontation with fear.