Based on fact The Little Wartime Library, by Kate Thompson, was a wonderful and powerful read. Clara Button has created a library in a tube station during WWII. It is the country's only underground library. It is more, though ... an entire community, with thousands of bunk beds, a cafe, and nursery ... and more. Her library is a safe space, and offers relief and a distraction from what is going on in London. Not everyone is happy with what she's doing though (helping kids read? having (gasp) romance books in the collection? handing out leaflets about birth control?) and there are some who want her fired. Be sure to read the notes at the back, too ... and plan on reading far into the night.

This is a new author for me, and a start of a new series for her: Gigi Pandian and the first in her Secret Staircase Mystery series, Under Lock & Skeleton Key. Tempest Raj has returned home town, escaping some bad things that have happened. That bad stuff seems to be following her as someone she knows is found dead in a house being renovated, and not just someone, her stage double ... so might Tempest have been the intended target? Lots of fun here, secret rooms and strange keys. Oh, and there's a family curse, too.

Reading Hermit With Dog