The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes

What flavor book do I feel like immersing myself in this week? I often ask myself this and, because I had just finished Julia Alvarez's "In the Time of the Butterflies" for a class on politics and literature that I'm taking at the local university, I decided to pick up something light. "The Giver of Stars" has been

on the New York Times bestseller list for months and I understand why. You don't read Ms. Moyes for her soaring language or for a devastating foray into humanitarian crises. You read her simply for a rip-roaring story.

As a former bookmobile librarian I was naturally drawn to the history of the Packhorse Librarians, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_Horse_Library_Project funded in the late 30's and early '40's as part of the Works Progress Administration during the Roosevelt administration. The idea was to improve the lives of folks living in rural areas, particularly eastern Kentucky which was

deeply affected by the recession, by delivering reading materials to those families who might rarely get into town or have access to magazines, novels, kids' books, or even much human interaction at all.

Moyes is known for writing strong female characters and she doesn't fail us here. Margery O'Hare, a gun-toting, mule riding, independant woman who lives happily alone in her family cabin heads up a small band of women each searching for meaning in their lives. The strength of the novel is in the ways that these perceived misfits in the community develop camaraderie and ultimately deeply felt friendships that ignore race, class, and the limitations of disability.

Naturally, it will not be a smooth ride. Rural Kentucky in the thirties was not a hospitable place for the nurturing of liberated females earning their own money, working long, lonely hours on borrowed horses, delivering that thing most often feared in closed communities - knowledge! Baileyville is a company town, coal mining is its jewel and its scourge, and the Van Cleve family holds all the power.

 The young scion, Bennett Van Cleve, has returned from a European tour with  British bride Alice in tow, a young woman whose perception of America is New York City. Can the marriage survive the culture shock? And can the Van Cleve's accept the humiliation of Alice's passionate embrace of library work over the soul deadening domestic duties expected of her?

As you should expect from Moyes ("Me Before You") this novel threads multiple romances through historical realism, adding to the mix the health, safety, and environmental aspects of unregulated coal mining, blatant sexism, and classism. In other words, there's something here for everyone. I'm sorry to say that it wasn't until I sat down to write that I discovered that there's a rather disturbing controversy surrounding this book and its similarities to another recently released story about the very same packhorse librarians in Kentucky, "The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek." https://bit.ly/311Odqa 

I thoroughly enjoyed the JoJo Moyes book, reading all afternoon yesterday to finish it. Now, I wonder if it's tainted. Have any of you read either novel or both? How do you weigh in on the possibility of plagiarism? I'd love to hear from you.