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A Novel
The provocative and hilarious summer read that will have book lovers cheering and everyone talking! Kirsten Miller, author of The Change, brings us a bracing, wildly entertaining satire about a small Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she's actually read. To replace the "pornographic" books she's challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she's sure the town's readers need.
What Lula doesn't know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula's library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean's library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean's enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town's disgraced mayor.
That's when all the townspeople who've been borrowing from Lula's library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that's been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.
What are you reading this week? (8/7/2025)
I just finished Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller and began reading Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto. I'm listening to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy when I w...
-Louise_H
What are you reading this week? (7/31/2025)
I've just begun Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller for one of my book clubs. I'm listening to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.
-Louise_H
"The story climaxes with a heated race for town mayor between Lindsay's mother, Beverly, who vehemently opposes the book bans, and Lula. While some of the plot turns strain credulity, they make for a clever send-up of book banners' misplaced fears. Miller's fans will flock to her latest page-turner as social critique." —Publishers Weekly
"A pointed, punchy, and potent thriller...wry and clever, serious and exacting, and masterfully suspenseful." —Booklist (starred review)
"Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is shaping up to be this summer's Big Read. Kirsten Miller has that rare ability to take a serious subject and make it very, very funny. I enjoyed this novel and you will too." —James Patterson
This information about Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kirsten Miller (born 1973) works in advertising in New York City and is the author of the Kiki Strike series and The Eternal Ones. In 2001, the front lawn of a Manhattan nursing home collapsed to reveal an underground room, giving Miller the idea for the first book of the Kiki Strike series, set in the underground tunnels and rooms beneath the city. She created Kiki Strike and the Irregulars (named after Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars) to explore these secret passageways. Kirsten is also co-author of a young adult novel, Nightmares! with Jason Segel.
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