MOSES LAKE — The author of a best-selling novel and a Spokane-based naturalist and historian will be talking about their work at local high schools and libraries in December. The visits of Ruta Sepetys and Jack Nesbet are sponsored by the North Central Regional Library.

Sepetys will visit Moses Lake High School and Warden High School Dec. 7; her visit is sponsored as part of the “NCRL Reads” program. Sepetys is the author of “Between Shades of Gray,” which is one of the NCRL Reads books.

“Between Shades of Gray” was published in 2012, became a best-seller and is the basis of the movie “Ashes in the Snow,” released in September.

The book tells the story of 15-year-old Lina Vilkas, who lives in an independent Lithuania in the late 1930s. But Lithuania was unlucky – it was a former province of the Russian empire, and its independence was not to the liking of Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union. Its independence didn’t last. The country was occupied and forced into the Soviet Union in 1940.

Lena and her family suffer the fate of thousands of their countrymen – in the summer of 1941 the Soviet secret police break into Lena’s home. Her dad is taken away and Lena, her mom and brother disappear into the network of labor camps known by its acronym, the Gulag. “Between Shades of Gray” follows the struggle of Lena and her family to survive.

Sepetys also will visit Eastmont (East Wenatchee) and Cashmere high schools Dec. 5, and Pateros and Liberty Bell (Methow Valley) high schools Dec. 6. She will be speaking at 6 p.m. Dec. 5 at Wenatchee High School. She also has written “Out of the Easy,” about a girl living through a tumultuous childhood in 1950s New Orleans, and “Salt to the Sea,” about a maritime disaster in the last days of World War II.

Nisbet will talk about his latest book, “The Dreamer and the Doctor,” at 6 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Moses Lake Public Library.

The book tells the story of John and Carrie Leiberg, homesteaders in the Idaho panhandle in 1886. Carrie Leiberg was a frontier physician, and John Leiberg worked for the U.S. Forest Commission, precursor to the U.S. Forest Service.

Nisbet has been researching and writing Pacific Northwest history, especially the Inland Northwest, for about 20 years. He has written extensively about early explorers in the region, including David Thompson and David Douglas, and he written collections of essays on the region, its floriculture and geography.

Nesbit will be speaking at the Wenatchee and Okanogan public libraries Dec. 6 and the Twisp Public Library Dec. 13.