[WARNING: Contains sensitive topics that some readers may find distressing!]
"The greatest love story is the one you least expect...
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. Yet she doesn't much care for her domineering father-in-law or the judgemental townsfolk of Baileyville, Kentucky. Restless and misunderstood, she yearns for escape and adventure, finding it in the defiant and unlikely sisterhood who bring books to the isolated and vulnerable of the wilderness. But when her father-in-law and the town suddenly turn against them, Alice fears she'll lose her freedom, friends and the chance of unexpected love..." - Taken from the blurb.
"The WPA's Horseback Librarian Programme ran from 1935 to 1943. At its height it brought books to more than a hundred thousand rural inhabitants. No programme like it has ever been set up since.
Eastern Kentucky remains one of the poorest - and most beautiful - places in the United States." - Taken from the Postscript
Beautiful! Based on a true story, the Pack Horse Librarians were such empowering women! The characters in this novel were amazing and I definitely felt as if I were one of them. At first I didn't know what to expect: this is hardly a book I would normally pick up. I wanted something Lovey-Dovey for Valentine's Day but I guess I signed up for much more!
My February book that I chose for Valentine's Day - a bit late, but you know me. I love, love, LOVED the plot, the characters were so good and well written. I did struggle at first getting into it but similarly to the last book, once I got half way, the story really picked up. Breathtaking story about friendship, love and bravery. Seriously considering adopting personalities from all of my favourite characters.
[Spoilers Ahead]
Set in 1930's America, Moyes writes about a group of women delivering books, magazines, comics and bibles to various poor families around the mountains that surround their small town. This is obviously frowned upon as women apparently do not need distracting from their work in the home, nor do they need indecent ideas about religion, sex, or anything else for that matter. The group of women use the bible as a way of getting around this issue, claiming teaching the "hillbillies" to read would make more people understand scripture and thus allow them to fully appreciate the holy book and God Himself.
Alice Van Cleve is newly married and trying hard to settle into her new home full of judgy people - I mean if it were today times, these people would have been thwacked around the head a couple of times. Unhappy, she signs up to be a rider for the library, learning all the ropes and finding a role model in Margery O'Hare, an outspoken, independent, outcast of the town. Bennett Van Cleve's father, dislikes Margery immensely, claiming that she is corrupting the town with her unconventional ways, including his mouthy daughter-in-law, causing him to want to close the library and destroy all her hard work.
Margery is in a relationship with a miner named Sven, however, refuses to marry him due to her determination to remain a free woman despite their love for each other - and the fact that he asks her pretty much every day. Due to Sven working in the mines, he knows exactly what they plan to do, which is blow up some of the mountains in order to create new mines. Telling Margery this, she immediately writes anonymous letters to the families up there, telling them to go straight to the council as the miners do not have any right. But guess who is the owner of the mining company...yep, Bennett's father! This obviously causes him to rage and have even more reason to want to bring Margery down! I genuinely loved Margery, she was witty and smart. She loved her library, her mule, reading and her friends fiercely. The other women in the group are just as amazing, from the boyish Beth, to the young Izzy, to the motherly Sophia.
In all honesty, the book started off really slow - there was a lot of describing the mountains and what Alice felt, both a home with her husband and at the library - which I now get as about half way the story was really good and all the describing suddenly made sense. The story opens with a prologue of Margery in the mountains alone, when the local drunk attacks her. She luckily gets away unharmed, but later in the book the man is found dead and the evidence singles out Margery as the main suspect. What makes things difficult is that Margery is pregnant, causing everyone in her life to become fearfully protective, defending her to the townsfolk, most of which want any reason to make her go away - their fears being intensified by the fact that she is pregnant out of wedlock.
I did not expect Alice to leave her husband, yet I should have expected Mr. Van Cleve (his father) to hit her. I mean, seriously, it's bad enough domestic happening between the couple itself, but when it's a third party getting involved?! I had to take a few moments to calm down as I found Mr. Van Cleve despicable, which made me want to find out if he met his demise in the end even more. Alice then finds what she was hoping to have with Bennett, with Fred, the mule trainer who lets the library occupy his shed. He is kind and gentle, and the love the two characters have is full of passion many people only wish they had. One thing I would say is that I wish Alice's opinions on Fred would have been mentioned more, as it was only towards the end that Alice even looked at him in this way - granted she was under the impression that she was married, however, if she was so unhappy and completely brushed aside by her husband, surely some sort of feelings for someone who is kind to her and she knows loves her would be there, in whatever way.
Regardless, there was so much love in this story: love between the women in the form of friendship; the love Margery had for her baby; the love Margery and Alice had for their partners; and most importantly the love of reading each person who touched a book in this story had. The women that were the real Pack Horse Librarians allowed people to learn how to read and write, and gave these poor families and opportunity to grow and develop as people. This book definitely demonstrates the importance of sharing a love of reading and knowledge, and I wish this was still a thing today.
On to my ratings. I must say, I kinda loved this book more than the other one; I loved that it was based in a true event and made me want to learn more about the Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky. So definitely a star for plot. A star has to go to the characters, I felt like they were real people who I knew and I felt their failures and successes as my own. A star for ease of reading, because even though it took me a few weeks to get half way, once I did it was just amazing and I couldn't put it down. A star for its surprising excellence; I would not have chosen this book had it not been for the necessity of a romance. I was aware that Moyes was a popular romance writer, yet because I have never been an avid romance reader, I never felt the desire to read one, but I am certainly glad I did. A final star for Moyes' writing, as even though this may fall into plot and/or characters, the writing is something to be appreciated on its own. This should be on everyone's bookshelf!
★★★★★
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