All the Ms: Malerman to Mallery

Josh Malerman: A House at the Bottom of a Lake I picked up because I loved the title. I’m fascinated by water and places under water. The book is about the relationship between Amelia and James, starting with the first date. 

Aanchal Malhotra: The Book of Everlasting Things is a saga of a young man and a forbidden love. I know that from reading the dust jacket. The first chapter is about the young man’s ability to smell perfume. The chapter is very well-written. 

Tania Malik: Three Bargains is a saga tale set in contemporary India. Overall, like the book by Malhotra, it seems to embrace life, even if sadness is part of the equation.  

Ally Malinenko: Sometimes during this project, I feel like every writer in a group of books I got out of the library is writing on the same subject. It likely says more about the human tendency to find patterns than about every author in the Mal range being interested in the same thing. With this post, there are several books about houses! 

However, Malinkenko's Appearing House starts with Jae, who is recovering from cancer. The first chapter sets an interesting premise

“She’d read the books. The stories were always the same. Kid got sick; everyone felt bad; kid taught everyone to love in a deeper, more meaningful way; kid died; everyone remembered the kid as a hero…She’d never read about a kid who’d Gone Through What She Had and lived. They didn’t write stories about those kids.” 

Susan Mallery: Susan Mallery has her own shelf at the Portland Public Library. The books are what I call “world” romances—that is, in Three Sisters–which also begins with a house!--the story is as much about the neighborhood and the job and the friends of the main character, who meets two other women who have romances of their own, as about the romances. Not more cup of tea but the first chapter was more engaging than other romances I’ve read in the Ms.