The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes - A Story of Love, Friendship and Horses in the Kentucky Mountains

 

The Times says The Giver of Stars is Jojo Moyes' 'best novel yet', and I have to agree.

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 story of Alice Van Cleve, Margery O'Hare and the WPA packhorse library is so captivating that I truly felt I was out riding a dusty mule with them through the Kentucky mountains, taking books to those who needed to learn to read, or to those who needed the stimulation of a good book, and more . . . 

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.

They make such a good team that they remind me of two other books by Jojo Moyes: The Ship of Brides where a group of women set sail from Australia after the war on an aircraft carrier to meet up with their servicemen husbands in England; and Silver Bay  where a group of people join together to prevent a tourist village development which will threaten the whale and dolphin population of their bay.

If you haven't read them, give them a try!

A Gripping Murder Mystery in Small Town America - The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones

The Next Time You See Me is Holly Goddard Jones' first full length novel, although she has already been acclaimed for her Girl Trouble collection of short stories.
This mystery thriller is set in the fictional Roma, Kentucky, where the lives of the characters who live in this small American town are changed for ever by the discovery of a body in the woods below Harper Hill by thirteen-year-old, Emily Houchens.

Emily admires Christopher Shelton, a boy in her class at the middle school, but he calls her a creep.
Their teacher, Susanna Mitchell, keeps him in because of his arrogant insolence over some work he hasn't completed.
Meanwhile, Susanna is worried that she hasn't heard in days from her wayward sister, Ronnie.
Tony Joyce is the detective on the case, and he revives the feelings that Susanna had for him when they were at school but could not reciprocate because he is black.
Wyatt Powell is a middle-aged loner who is taken out to a bar by his workmates just to get him drunk and leave him with the bill, and Emily's father, Morris Houchens, is the only one from work to be kind to him and look after his dog, Boss, when Wyatt has a heart attack.
Lastly, there is Sarah, a nurse in her early forties who has never married and meets Wyatt in the bar and later cares for him in hospital.

Is the body Ronnie's? If so, how did she die? Who is the killer?
What did Emily see Christopher and the popular Leanna doing by the tennis courts?
Will Susanna leave her bandleader husband, Dale, for Tony Joyce? And what will happen to their daughter, Amy?
What has Wyatt got to do with Ronnie's disappearance?
And should Sarah follow her heart?
All these questions are answered by Holly Goddard Jones in a compelling way that makes you keep reading on to find out the truth. I like her economical style; it's very visual and I can imagine the characters interacting as they play out the story, and I would certainly like to read some more of her work.

The Next Time You See Me is available from Amazon via this link.

Girl Trouble is also available here.