The Giver of Stars

Jojo Moyes

Set during the Great Depression in rural Kentucky, this historical novel follows Alice Wright, an Englishwoman who marries into a wealthy American family only to find her new life stifling, and Margery O'Hare, a fiercely independent local woman. The two join a small group of women who become traveling 'packhorse librarians,' delivering books on horseback through the Appalachian mountains. As they build friendships and face danger, poverty, and the hostility of powerful men in town, the women find unexpected strength and purpose in their work. The story is loosely inspired by the real Pack Horse Library Project of the 1930s.