Spotlight & Giveaway: The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Elise Hooper to HJ!

Hi Elise and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Library of Lost Dollhouses!

 
Hi! Thanks for hosting me and my new book!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Library of Lost Dollhouses is dual-time historical fiction about a mysterious collection of old dollhouses that reveal the secrets of the women who once owned them.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“To create art is, at its core. a hopeful act. In a world that was all too filled with heartbreak and sorrow, I needed to choose hope.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

I was inspired to write this book because of my old family dollhouse that was built for my great grandmother in 1896 (give or take a year or two). When I was a girl I spent hours sitting in front of my dollhouse, making up little stories and creating miniature furnishings, so I associate the dollhouse with how I learned to be creative. As part of my research for this novel, I had so much fun refurbishing and updating the old dollhouse. I’ve documented the process on Instagram at @elisehooper.com!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

There are a few different romances in this novel, but the common trait between all of them is that the characters really see each other and that desire for authenticity bonds them together.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I often laugh and cry while I’m writing–does that sound crazy? I guess that’s part of the reason I work at home and not in coffee shops or public places. I don’t want to scare people with my reactions! I had so much fun writing this novel because I loved the characters so much. I cried a couple times while working on the scenes when the characters realize they’re in love with each other. And at one point, an important character dies and I really hated writing that scene. I also cried when I finished the novel. The ending is a “happily ever after,” but I was very sad to say goodbye to this story.

Readers should read this book….

Reader should read this book if they want an uplifting story about interesting and quirky historical women. This is a story about friendship, art, and love, so if that’s something you want, you can find it here!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m currently working on a novel set in 1950s Seattle. At the moment, that’s all I can say about it!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of THE LIBRARY OF LOST DOLLHOUSE by Elise Hooper

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you had a dollhouse, what’s a secret about yourself that you could hide in it?

 
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Excerpt from The Library of Lost Dollhouses:

Tildy crossed the threshold and found a small narrow room with a lone shuttered window at the distant end. Two large objects encased in canvas coverings stood between Tildy and the
far window. She approached the first large covered object, noting it was atop a sturdy, well-crafted
mahogany cabinet. Cautiously, Tildy lifted the edge of the canvas and found herself peering into a window. A miniature window. Like Alice in Wonderland, Tildy felt a dizzying sense of shifting
perspective, as if she’d drunk an unlabeled potion and grown to a tremendous size. Gingerly, she eased the canvas cover off and stepped backward, inhaling sharply as she surveyed her discovery.
It was a dollhouse. A magnificent dollhouse. The neoclassical dollhouse exterior was designed to look like stone. Recognition flickered through Tildy. She knew this building from old photos. It was a re-creation of Hôtel LeFarge, the Paris mansion where Belva had once lived during her marriage in the early 1900s. Tildy circled the miniature and found an open backside revealing interior rooms—thirteen of them. She gasped in delight. Tiny paintings dotted the dollhouse’s walls. Bejeweled chandeliers resembling finely crafted jewelry hung from the ceilings. And the millwork! Elegant wainscoting panels with crisp corners, carved mantels and ceiling canopies, and crown molding daintier than babies’ teeth decorated the rooms. On the dollhouse’s bottom floor, Tildy spotted a kitchen, its walls covered in tiny white hexagonal tiles. Shelves were filled with
copper pots and pans, thimble-size porcelain storage canisters, and jars of pickled vegetables and fruits that looked amazingly real despite being minute in size. Extraordinary. In the other rooms, Tildy recognized several paintings that now hung in the Bel, here in miniature. The dollhouse had a library on its second floor. Rows and rows of miniature books lined its shelves, and a model of a schooner, its rigging as delicate as spiderweb filament, was displayed on a table. Nearby was an elaborately decorated floor globe smaller than a golf ball. The details were incredible, the craftsmanship mind-boggling. Why was this hidden away?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

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.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

A native New Englander, Elise Hooper spent several years writing for television and online news outlets before getting a MA and teaching high-school literature and history. Her debut novel The Other Alcott was a nominee for the 2017 Washington Book Award. Three more novels—Learning to See, Fast Girls, and Angels of the Pacific—followed, all centered on the lives of extraordinary but overlooked historical women. Her next book, The Library of Lost Dollhouses, will be out in spring ’25. Elise lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters.
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