Lewis & Clark Library Blog

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams                                            - Historical Fiction

"We read this book for our book group and it is just so charming!" 

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means "slave girl," begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages. Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. 
Find The Dictionary of Lost Words in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby  eBook and eAudiobook
Read more about the author Here

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams                                                                   -Literary Fiction

"I read this novel during the pandemic and it is one of the best books I have ever read. It could be made into a Masterpiece TV series. It's a wonderful story and so well written."

You don't see rain stop, but you sense it. You sense something has changed in the frequency you've been living and you hear the quietness you thought was silence get quieter still, and you raise your head so your eyes can make sense of what your ears have already told you, which at first is only: something has changed.  The rain is stopping. Nobody in the small, forgotten village of Faha remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard was a condition of living. Now--just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity--it is stopping. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is standing outside his grandparents' house shortly after the rain has stopped when he encounters Christy for the first time. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.  This is the story of all that was to follow: Christy's long-lost love and why he had come to Faha, Noel's own experiences falling in and out of love, and the endlessly postponed arrival of electricity--a development that, once complete, would leave behind a world that had not changed for centuries.  Niall Williams' latest novel is an intricately observed portrait of a community, its idiosyncrasies and its traditions, its paradoxes and its inanities, its failures and its triumphs. Luminous and otherworldly, and yet anchored with deep-running roots into the earthy and the everyday, This Is Happiness is about stories as the very stuff of life: the ways they make the texture and matter of our world, and the ways they write and rewrite us.
Find This is Happiness in the library catalog Here 
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook 
Hoopla audiobook
Read more about the author Here

The Aviary by Deirdre McNamer                                                                        - Literary Thriller

"Set in Montana, written by an author who resides in Missoula."

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander

"The Lady Emily mysteries by Tasha Alexander is set in Victorian England. The books in this series cover a wide range of historical subjects from the Russian ballet to the death of Henry VI to the pyramids in Egypt!"

For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the Viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly. His journals reveal him to have been a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who, to her surprise, was deeply in love with his wife. Emily becomes fascinated with this new image of her dead husband and she immerses herself in all things ancient and begins to study Greek. Emily's intellectual pursuits and her desire to learn more about Philip take her to the quiet corridors of the British Museum, one of her husband's favorite places. There, amid priceless ancient statues, she uncovers a dark, dangerous secret involving stolen artifacts from the Greco-Roman galleries. And to complicate matters, she's juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond the marrying kind. As she sets out to solve the crime, her search leads to more surprises about Philip and causes her to question the role in Victorian society to which she, as a woman, is relegated.

Currently there are seventeen novels in the Lady Emily series, starting with And Only to Deceive (published in 2005) to the most recently published A Cold Highland Wind (just published in 2023). For a list of the books in series order, look Here.
Find The Lady Emily mystery series in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla eBooks and audiobooks
Read more about the author Here

Devil's Chew Toy by Rob Osler

"I absolutely loved The Devil's Chew Toy!  Great story, and a VERY colorful cast of characters!"

Seattle teacher and part-time blogger Hayden McCall wakes sporting one hell of a shiner, with the police knocking at his door. It seems that his new crush, dancer Camilo Rodriguez, has gone missing and they suspect foul play. What happened the night before? And where is Camilo? Determined to find answers, pint-sized, good-hearted Hayden seeks out two of Camilo's friends-Hollister and Burley-both lesbians and both fiercely devoted to their friend. From them, Hayden learns that Camilo is a "Dreamer" whose parents had been deported years earlier, and whose sister, Daniela, is presumed to have returned to Venezuela with them. Convinced that the cops won't take a brown boy's disappearance seriously, the girls join Hayden's hunt for Camilo. The first clues turn up at Barkingham Palace, a pet store where Camilo had taken a part-time job. The store's owner, Della Rupert, claims ignorance, but Hayden knows something is up. And then there's Camilo's ex-boyfriend, Ryan, who's suddenly grown inexplicably wealthy. When Hayden and Hollister follow Ryan to a secure airport warehouse, they make a shocking connection between him and Della-and uncover the twisted scheme that's made both of them rich. The trail of clues leads them to the grounds of a magnificent estate on an island in Puget Sound, where they'll finally learn the truth about Camilo's disappearance-and the fate of his family.
Find Devil's Chew Toy in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook 
Hoopla eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

"Ruth Ware is a reliable source for a great mystery--they are intense and suspenseful and you will be stressed out in the best way. The Woman in Cabin 10 is a set on a cruise ship- so there is nowhere to escape!"

In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie's works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo's stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for--and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo's desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong... With surprising twists, spine-tingling turns, and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense read in The Woman in Cabin 10--one that will leave even the most sure-footed reader restlessly uneasy long after the last page is turned.
Find The Woman in Cabin 10 in the library catalog Here 
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and eAudiobook
Boundless audiobook
Read more about the author Here

"I loved the Louise Penny's Three Pines mystery series, starting with Still Life. Her characters seem like old friends, and the setting is vivid and charming. The plot kept me engaged and it was hard to put a book down! 

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter. Still Life introduces an engaging series hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces---and this series---with integrity and quiet courage.
Currently there are seventeen novels in this series. For a list of the books in series order, look Here.
Find The Chief Inspector Gamache series in the library catalog Here   
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBooks and audiobooks
Boundless eBooks and audiobooks 
Hoopla audiobooks
Read more about the author Here

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

"If you're looking for a lighter, laugh out loud thriller, featuring four older women who can still kick butt and take names this is your book!"

They've spent their lives as assassins in a clandestine international organization, but at 60 years old, four women find they can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this book by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years when they are targeted by one of their own. Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman - and a killer - of a certain age.
Find Killers of a Certain Age in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

The Couples Trip by Ulf Kvensler

"Definitely one of the darker mysteries I've read in a long time, this book pushed me beyond my comfort level, and it was worth it!"