Fireside Chat w/ Author Elise Hooper

Join us for an exciting fireside chat event with author Elise Hooper in conversation with TBD.

Please select your ticket type to let us know if you will be purchasing a book at the event or not. GA = Attending, but no book, GA + Book = attending and purchasing a book. This helps us order enough books for the event!

About The Library of Lost Dollhouses:

When a young librarian discovers historic dollhouses in a hidden room, she embarks on an unexpected journey that reveals surprising secrets about the lost miniatures.

Tildy Barrows, Head Curator of a beautiful archival library in San Francisco, is meticulously dedicated to the century’s worth of inventory housed in her beloved Beaux Art building. She loves the calm and order in the shelves of books and walls of art. But Tildy’s uneventful life takes an unexpected turn when she, first, learns the library is on the verge of bankruptcy and, second, discovers two exquisite never-before-seen dollhouses. After finding clues hidden within these remarkable miniatures, Tildy starts to believe that Belva Curtis LeFarge, the influential heiress who established the library a century ago, is conveying a significant final message.

With a newfound sense of spontaneity, Tildy sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey to understand introduces her to a world of ambitious and gifted women in Belle Époque Paris, a group of scarred World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney’s bustling Burbank studio in the 1950s. As Tildy unravels the mystery, she finds not only inspiring, overlooked history, but also a future for herself, filled with exciting possibilities—and an astonishing familial revelation.

Spanning the course of a century, The Library of Lost Dollhouses is a warm, bright, and captivating story of secrets and love that embraces the importance of illuminating overlooked women of the past.

About Elise Hooper:

I grew up in New England as a bonafide bookworm. My love of reading, paired with an overly active imagination, led me to believe I was born in the wrong era. Instead of living in the ‘80s, I was supposed to be traveling across the prairie in a covered wagon (Laura Ingalls), chasing fauns through Narnia (Susan or Lucy Pevensie), or exploring Prince Edward Island in “puffed sleeves” (Anne Shirley); instead I crossed town in a station wagon to chase field hockey balls and wore Tretorns to explore the mall, all while dreaming of leading a more storied existence somewhere like Thornfield Hall or Manderley.

After eventually moving to the West coast and attending graduate school, I started teaching high school English and history and writing whenever I had the chance. My main characters tend to be based on the lives of real women who have been frequently overlooked in history books. Many of these women, like May Alcott, Dorothea Lange, Betty Robinson, Helen Stephens, Louise Stokes, and the Angels of Bataan can help us better understand the past and draw important connections to our own times.

Host or Publisher Grit City Books