Andrew Bayne Memorial Library

Join us June 9, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. when we discuss Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon.

It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. As Lucienne Carlier, Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border. Her success and her remarkable ability to evade capture earns her the nickname The White Mouse from the Gestapo. With a five million franc bounty on her head, Nancy is forced to escape France and leave Henri behind. When she enters training with the Special Operations Executives in Britain, her new comrades are instructed to call her Helene. And finally, with mission in hand, Nancy is airdropped back into France as the deadly Madam Andree, where she claims her place as one of the most powerful leaders in the French Resistance, armed with a ferocious wit, her signature red lipstick, and the ability to summon weapons straight from the Allied Forces. But no one can protect Nancy if the enemy finds out these four women are one and the same, and the closer to liberation France gets, the more exposed she—and the people she loves—become

Ask at the desk to get a copy!

Join us Tuesday, May 26, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. when we discuss The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder

The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and was the best-selling work of fiction that year. It has also been made into several movies. It tells the story of several people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die.

Ask at the desk for a copy of this classic.