Frank Carlson Library

Engaging the services of a miniaturist to furnish a cabinet-sized replica of her new home, 18-year-old Nella Oortman, the wife of an illustrious merchant trader, soon discovers that the artist's tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.

Early in the twentieth century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey, slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time an Indian elephant was deliberately and publicly put to death by electricity in Coney Island. These are matters of historical fact. Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and wrongs crying out to be righted. Brace yourself for a wrenching journey that...

Teenaged Wyn Davies took a shortcut through the woods in her New Hampshire hometown and became a cautionary tale. Twenty years later, divorced, she lives in New York making her living painting commissioned canvases of birch trees to match her clients' furnishings. Then she hears that Robby Rousseau, who has spent the past two decades in prison for a terrible crime against her, may be released based on new DNA evidence. Wyn agrees to be temporary caretaker...

The unexpected delivery of a large crate containing an Antarctic penguin changes the life and fortunes of Mr. Popper, a house painter obsessed by dreams of the Polar regions.

"Kate Myles was a promising Los Angeles police detective, until an accident and opioid addiction blew up her family and destroyed her career. Struggling to rebuild her life, Kate decides to try her hand at private detective work--but she gets much more than she bargained for when she takes on the case of a celebrated painter found dead in a downtown loft. When Margot Starling's body was found, the cause of death was assumed to be suicide. Despite...

When Rachel, a married and well-respected doctor living in a picturesque and affluent English village, embarks on a dangerous affair with a French painter who has a mental disorder, she finds her life blown wide open when he is accused of murdering one of her colleagues.

Cara Rutledge inherited her mother Lovie's beach house on Isle of Palms. She rents the house for the summer to Heather, who suffers from extreme social anxiety. Heather plans to send the summer painting shore birds, for a postage stamps commission. When Cara suffers a life changing tragedy, she wishes only to return to the beach house that had once been her port amid life's storms. The two start out as strangers, but together they rediscover their...

"Naomi Byler cooks meals for the guests at The Peony Inn, where Amish sisters and owners of the inn Esther and Lizzie love her like a granddaughter. She’s as happy there as a young woman can be, considering that her fiancé, Thomas, has left her to court someone else. She knows she’ll get over the love of her life in due time, but she assumes marriage will never be a part of her future. Amos Lantz and his mother are guests at the inn,...