It is 1937, and Alice, 'kept at home' because of her unseemly behaviour, is swept off her feet by Bennett, a gorgeous, rich American whom she marries to escape the tedium of the English Home Counties. But, when she arrives in Baileyville, Kentucky, she finds that she has to live with Bennett and his boorish father, Geoffrey Van Cleeve, which means that the restrictions on her life are just as bad.
The WPA (Works Progress Association) packhorse library was set up by Eleanor Roosevelt to help educate the minds of the mountain people. Here in Baileyville, they mainly work in the Hoffman coal mine, under the the control of Bennett's father, in very poor conditions. So when Mrs Brady invites Alice to join the packhorse library, she sees it as an opportunity not only to to escape, once again, but also to help these people, and although her horseback experience only amounts to riding round her grandma's Sussex estate, she eventually enjoys the treks up the mountain and gets to know the people there.
Margery O'Hare, one of the packhorse librarians, is threatened on her round one cold December day by Clem McCullough whose family has had a feud with the O'Hares going back decades. However, the people of Baileyville, Kentucky, are used to the constant fighting and many of them are pleased to see Margery and share the library books.
These two women, drawn together by the library, form an unlikely friendship. Margery, with her wild upbringing, is fiercely independent; she doesn't want to marry Sven who is devoted to her and wants to live by her own rules, whilst Alice, independent in her own way, has found that leaving England has thrown her out of the frying pan into the fire.
The title, The Giver of Stars, comes from a beautiful poem of the same name by Amy Lowell, (1874 - 1925) about joy and pleasure. This is something that Alice has yet to experience with Bennett, and something that the the local women have problems with too, until Margery begins to pass round a little blue book called, Married Love, by Dr Marie Stopes, which helps them, but enrages Geoffrey Van Cleve. Further trouble ensues when she distributes a letter urging the people to stand up against his plans to extend the mine.
It is these and other problems that bring Alice, Margery, and their friends Izzy, Beth and Sophia together, helped by Fred, the kind horse trainer who offers his barn to house the books, to fight for what they believe in and the very future of the packhorse library itself.
