2023 Schedule
(This schedule is subject to change as deemed necessary.)

Stripped Bare by Shannon Baker
Stripped Bare by Shannon Baker is "A must read" (Alex Kava, New York Times bestselling author) that stars a female Longmire in the atmospheric Nebraska Sandhills. Kate Fox is living the dream. She's married to Grand County Sheriff Ted Conner, the heir to her beloved Nebraska Sandhills cattle ranch, where they live with Kate's orphaned teenage niece, Carly. With the support of the well-connected Fox Clan, which includes Kate's eight boisterous and interfering siblings, Ted's reelection as Grand County Sheriff is virtually assured. That leaves Kate to the solitude and satisfaction of Frog Creek, her own slice of heaven. One night Kate answers a shattering phone call from Roxy at the Bar J. Carly's granddad Eldon, owner of the ranch, is dead and Ted has been shot and may never walk again. Kate vows to find the killer. She soon discovers Ted responded so quickly to the scene because he was already at the Bar J . . . in Roxy's bed. And to add to her woes, Carly has gone missing. Kate finds out that Eldon was considering selling his ranch to an obscenely rich environmentalist. Some in town hate the idea of an outsider buying up land, others are desperate to sell . . . and some might kill to get their way. As she becomes the victim of several |́|accidents,|́| Kate knows she must find the killer before it's too late.-- provided by publisher.
Wednesday, December 13  |  10:00 am
Louisburg Library

2024 Schedule
(This schedule is subject to change as deemed necessary.)

The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson
A murderer, a victim, and a witness... but no one in this house is innocent. Twenty years ago an unspeakable tragedy rocked Rose Yates's small, affluent hometown... and only Rose and her family know the truth about what happened. Haunted by guilt, Rose escaped into a new life. Now she seems to have it all: a marriage, a son, a career. And then her husband is found dead.As far as Detective Colin Pearson is concerned, Rose is guilty. Her marriage wasn't as happy as she'd led everyone to believe, and worse, she's connected to a twenty-year-old cold case. She can play the part of the victim, but he won't let her or her family escape justice this time around.Grieving her husband and struggling to make ends meet, Rose returns home, hoping to finally confront her domineering father and unstable sister. But memories of a horrific crime echo through the house, and Rose soon learns that she can't trust anyone, especially not the people closest to her.
Wednesday, January 10  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
One Book, One Burg: Louisburg Reads
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
Wednesday, February 14  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Clear My Name by Paula Daly
When Carrie was accused of brutally murdering her husband's lover, she denied it. She denied it again when they found her blood inside his house, again when they put her in front of a jury, and again when they sent her to prison. Now she's three years into her fifteen-year sentence, gradually losing hope and separated from her pregnant daughter, but she is still maintaining her innocence. Tess is the only paid employee of Innocence UK, a charity that helps clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, and which accepts Carrie's case. But can she trust Carrie? Tess is no starry-eyed recent grad--her assumption is that "they're all lying. "Meanwhile, Tess is also paired with Avril, a naïve young investigator-in-training, with the hope that by mentoring her, she can eventually double the group's investigative workload. But Tess unexpectedly bolts when she's tipped off to a witness that could possibly prove Carrie didn't commit the crime. While Tess and Avril work the case, re-interviewing witnesses and testing assumptions made at the time of the arrest, the tension ratchets up in both the case and Tess's personal life.
Wednesday, March 13  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton
Despite the fact that her aunt was an expert knitter, Kelly Flynn never picked up a pair of knitting needles she liked-until she strolled into House of Lambspun. Now, Kelly is about to learn how to knit one, purl two, and untangle the mystery behind her aunt's murder...Kelly would be the first to admit her life in Washington, D.C., is a little on the dull side. But coming back to Colorado for her beloved aunt's funeral wasn't the kind of excitement she was seeking. The police are convinced that her Aunt Helen's death was the result of a burglary gone bad, but for the accountant in Kelly, things just aren't adding up. After all, why would her sensible, sixty-eight-year-old aunt borrow $20,000 just days before her death? With the help of the knitting regulars at House of Lambspun, Kelly's about to get a few lessons in cranking out a sumptuously colored scarf-and in luring a killer out of hiding...Wednesday, April 10  |  11:00 am
Timbercreek Bar & Grill |  14 E. Amity St., Louisburg, KS

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends--two proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversaries. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.
Wednesday, May 8  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Share a Teaser about a book from this year's Author List
If we all read different books and share a little bit about them, we can try a variety authors all in one month.  Contact Holly for the author list.
Wednesday, June 12  |  11:00 am
Miss B's Café  |  1006 S. Metcalf, Louisburg, KS

Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life. Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl--assistance that leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: Cleo Sherwood, a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.  If Cleo were white, every reporter in Baltimore would be clamoring to tell her story. Instead, her mysterious death receives only cursory mention in the daily newspapers, and no one cares when Maddie starts poking around in a young Black woman's life--except for Cleo's ghost, who is determined to keep her secrets and her dignity. Cleo scolds the ambitious Maddie: You're interested in my death, not my life. They're not the same thing.  Maddie's investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life--a jewelry store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people--including Ferdie, the man who shares her bed, a police officer who is risking far more than Maddie can understand.
Wednesday, July 10  |  11:00 am
Café Latte |   Jackson Hotel, 139 W. Peoria St, Paola

Murder on the Bucket List by Elizabeth Perona
The septuagenarian women of the Summer Ridge Bridge Club have gathered in secret late one July night to check skinny-dipping off their bucket list. But as Francine observes, the jittery members seem more obsessed with body issues and elaborate preparations than actually stripping down and getting in the pool. A pungent smell emanating from the pool shed provides a perfect distraction. When a dead body flops out, it's an answered prayer for Charlotte, since the first item on her list is to solve a murder. Unfortunately for Charlotte and Francine, before they can discover who really killed the man, they must negotiate neighborhood tours of the crime scene, press coverage of their skinny-dipping, an angry homeowners' association, a disastrous appearance on Good Morning America, media offers sought by a hungry publicist, and a clever killer.
Wednesday, August 14  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Murder in the Marais by Cara Black
Aimee Leduc, a Parisian private investigator, has sworn she would stick to tech investigation - no criminal cases for her. Especially since her father, the late police detective, was killed in the line of duty. But when an old Jewish man approaches Aimee with a secret decoding job on behalf of a woman in his synagogue, Aimee unwittingly takes on more than she was expecting. When she takes her findings to her client's house in the Marais, Paris's historic Jewish quarter, she finds the old woman strangled, a swastika carved on her forehead. Can Aimee solve the crime?
Wednesday, September 11  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

In the Woods by Tana French
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox--his partner and closest friend--find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.
Wednesday, October 9  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner
Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own--and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.
Wednesday, November 13  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas
Nineteenth-century private detective Cyrus Barker teams up with Thomas Llewelyn, a young man with a murky past, to investigate the killing of a young scholar bearing a startling resemblance to artists' renderings of Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, December 11  |  10:00 am  |  Louisburg Library

Watch for the 2025 schedule.