The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

 

This was very different from the other books by JoJo Moyes, in that it is Historical Fiction, but I loved it no less. A really fascinating book, with very real characters you are really rooting for during their trials and tribulations. It is set during the Depression in Kentucky, America, and is about the Packhorse Librarians, a group of women set up to deliver and collect books to the mountain folk in the area who might have no access to books or magazines and reading. The initiative was set up by the First Lady and the Librarians were paid, but it was a free service to the borrower's, and in many cases became a bit of a lifeline to them. When bored, middle class Alice meets the handsome and dashing Bennett Van Cleave, and he proposes, she accepts with alacrity, and eagerly anticipates her new life in Kentucky, however things are not always as they seem. She soon realised when they move in with her infuriating father in law that she has swapped one set of problems for another. When at a town meeting they request riders for the new traveling library, Alice quickly volunteers, much to the upset of her husband and father in law. Alice soon becomes friends with the other librarians, once their initial suspicion of her has worn of - both as an Englishwoman and as the wife of a Van Cleave - the owners of the coal mines. Her best friend is Margery - the leader of the librarians, who is a bit of an enigma in the area. Daughter of a well known drunk, unmarried, and with her own set of standards, but with a heart as big as Kentucky. The book is their story. Their lives, their lives, their heartbreaks and their stresses, but most of all their love and friendship. A must read.