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 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 sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey 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, hidden history, but also a future for herself—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.
I do feel a bit let down by this just because it sounded so magical. It was interesting and well done, to be sure, but it wasn't the best for me. I was hoping for something like The Miniaturist and this felt like a very weak facsimile. Still, the dollhouse descriptions sound amazing and I think a lot of people will love this one.
The miniaturist stretches her arms overhead and exhales.
Late-afternoon sunshine spills across the plank floor of her workshop like maple syrup sliding from a spoon, making the air warm and languorous. The sweetened scent of the forest rises from freshly milled pine. When she lowers her arms, a nearby stack of mail in a basket catches her gaze. Letters from prospective clients. How do these women find her?
Word of her dollhouses and their secrets travels on whispers over the rims of teacups, the steps of front porches, and across kitchen tables and market counters. Until the dollhouse maker delved into the world of keeping other women's secrets, she had no idea there were so many possibilities: women write books and articles and publish them under men's names; they print and distribute subversive newspapers anonymously: they covertly offer illicit medical services to those in need; they bear children • they cannot claim as their own; they spend years developing inventions, only to have them claimed by men.
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