The publicity for this book pitches it unabashedly to those who enjoyed The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes and the Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Richardson, the two recent best-sellers portraying the librarians who brought books up the Eastern Kentucky hollows on pack-horses during the depression. It is great that these librarians are getting some long-deserved recognition, but I’m not particularly excited about a Christian romance writer trying to profiteer off the successes of other authors. The romance in this book is between a pack-horse librarian who is a University of Kentucky drop-out and a local man who has just arrived back home with a college degree. Booklist gave it a starred review, and called it “a delightful look into the rich history behind the historic pack-horse librarians of Appalachian, sweeping readers into the backwoods of 1936 Kentucky with fantastic period details and dialects. With a grace-based message of self-worth, this suspenseful historical romance is sure to charm readers.” Author Kim Vogel Sawyer is a highly successful Christian romance writer with over a million and a half copies of her sixteen books already sold in seven languages. She lives in Kansas.
New York: WaterBrook/Penguin Random House, 2020. 368 pages with a Reader’s Guide. Trade paperback.