The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

Publisher: William Morrow

On Sale Date: April 1, 2025

Pages: 320

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

San Francisco, present time; Tildy Barrows is the head curator of the Belva Curtis Lefarge library. She loves her job and is a true expert of preserving the historic inventory, books and art, in the beautiful Beaux Arts building. But the library is on the brink of bankruptcy and in danger of closing, Tildy finds out in a meeting with the director of the library. But then Tildy finds two beautiful historic dollhouses in a storage room. Who made these beautiful dollhouses, and why is there a miniature portrait of Tildy's mother in one of them? What is the secret message that Belva Curtis Lefarge. the heiress who started the libary,  was trying to tell? Tildy finds the initials of a certain CH on the dollhouses. These initials belonged to Cora Hart. A woman who moved to Paris from New York just before the war breaks out. Cora landed in a house full of artistic women because the help of Belva. Belva is a  married high society woman, but something blooms up between her and Cora. Cora starts making dollhouses that are truly works of art. She makes them in a part of Belva's estate. And then the war breaks out in Europe and all the women in the house leave. Cora wants to leave to and asks Belva to come with her, but Belva stays with her husband, who is unfaithful to her. With the help of a British duchess that also stayed in the house, Belva leaves for the UK, where she continues making dollhouses that contains secrets of the owners who ordered a dollhouse from her. She starts working with recovering injured soldiers from the war on the dollhouse, and later gets the chance to work for Disney in Hollywood. With the help of Cora's diary, Tildy discovers forgotten and secret histories, unexpected connections to her own family, and a chance to save the library.

I really liked the overall storyline of this book. The story starts and I was immediately interested in what happened next, and what the story of the dollhouses was. There are a lot of characters and a lot of different places and time periods in this story, so much that sometimes I was a little lost to what the connection was to Tildy's mother in connection to the dollhouse, and why there was a miniature portrait of her in one the dollhouses she found. The storyline was also a bit slow at some point in the later parts of the book. That part lacked a bit interesting plot twists. But further on I found this book entertaining at the other a parts. Overall I found this book not very outstanding, but it was a nice in between read to escape with.