The Book Woman's Daughter
Fiction
Sourcebooks Landmark
May 3, 2022
Paperback
352
Purchased
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.
Picking up her mother’s old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn’t need anyone telling her how to survive, but the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren’t as keen to let a woman pave her own way. If Honey wants to bring the freedom that books provide to the families who need it most, she’s going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.
My review:
This book is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. While I do think you could read this as a standalone novel, I think you will get more context for the characters and setting if you read the first one before this. I liked the first one, but didn't love it as much as most people who read it (including my book group). The things that I was not as enamored of in that first book were not as present in this one, and so I ended up enjoying this one more. One of my favorite parts of this one was the friendship between main protagonist Honey (the book woman's daughter) and a new woman in town who is the fire tower watcher. I also felt that we got a little more about the secondary characters, who didn't seem as fleshed out in the first book, and a lot less romance (and we all know how I feel about obligatory romances!). We do still get the glimpses into the lives of the people Honey delivers books to as part of the Packhorse Library project, but it's not the main focus of the book. Also not the main focus is the blue skin Honey inherits from her mother or the romance she develops in the latter half of the book. Both of these things were present, but not the main plot points, which for me personally made this a better reading experience. The survival aspects, the way women were treated and how they triumphed over obstacles, and the female friendship were the parts of the book that pulled me in and kept me engaged.
A well written and satisfying sequel with great emphasis on setting, characters, and perseverance. If you enjoyed the previous novel you will love this one, and if you were lukewarm about it, you may be as surprised by it as I was.
