A strong and beautiful story of the strength of a people and the compassion of one woman who touched many lives. In 1936 Kentucky, in the town of Troublesome Creek,  lives 19-year-old Cussy Mary Carter. The last known living woman of the Blue People of Kentucky.

The Coal mines are slowly killing her father and half the town and the other half is dying from poverty and lack of medical care. Cussy is a reader. So when she hears about the historical Pack Horse Library Project she becomes a librarian on a mule. Bringing books and reading material to the hill people of Kentucky. The route is dangerous and the mules aren't very co-operative, but Cussy is determined to bring these people a way to read and learn and to have them trust her.

She is called Bluet because of her blue skin but is known as the Book Woman. The people in town are cruel to her. Lumping her in with the coloreds in town and making sure she knows she isn't wanted. But to those people up the mountains, she is everything.

This book is based on the true story of the family of blue skinned people in Kentucky. You can look it up. I cried so much in this book. It broke my heart the way these people treated her.  But she never gave up. She kept the faith and the author did a beautiful job of making us feel all the feels!







NetGalley/  May 7th 2019 by Sourcebooks Landmark

Thank you Bookishfirst and Netgalley for providing an advanced copiy of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson in return for my honest review.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was a very touching historical fiction novel about a woman, named Cussy, ostracized due to her blue skin. She defied societal restrictions, earning her independence delivering books on horseback to poverty stricken areas in Appalachia, Kentucky in the 1930s as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal education program.

There was so much to like about this story. There were well-developed, relatable characters; some of them touched this reader’s heart and some of them broke it. This was a substantial story that was engaging, heartwarming and heartbreaking. Cussy is a character I will long remember in the very best of ways. She was a character who could have been bitter and resentful due to her circumstances, but instead was tender, kind and brave. She may have lived in a small, provincial town, but she found a path for herself, despite significant personal risk, delivering books to poverty stricken, remote communities. The charming, quirky friends she met along the way, as well as the prejudice she encountered, positively impacted how she saw herself and the life that she lived.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2743563245


So I have heard of the blue people of Kentucky before, and you tie that in with traveling librarians of the 1930's and I was sold. This is all about Cussy, or Bluet as they call her for her blue skin. I have to say, my heart broke for her. Through all her trials she had just because of the color of her skin, and all the prejudice she experienced. They did touch on the mining at the time, and how the Company were killing their workers and polluting the land. I loved this story, sad as it was. The history in it was amazing.

Troublesome Creek Reads

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is located in Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, and details the lives of the pack horse librarians, especially the life of Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy Mary was a "colored" woman, because her skin was blue. The era of the novel is during the Depression and this was a WPA program. What was not known was that the blue skin came from a type of anemia called methemoglobinemia, which means their blood is missing an enzyme and because of this missing enzyme, their blood was chocolate brown from lack of oxygen and their skin was blue. But, the "Blues," as they were called were treated much like the African-Americans in the area and they were all called "Colored."

Bluet, as Cussy Mary was called, had a route near her homestead where she delivered books, stopped and read to people, and generally took care of the people on her route. While Bluet made $28/month on her route, her father worked in the coal mines for unrealistic managers who used their employees like canaries in the mines.

Bluet's supervisors didn't really accept her and didn't like that she had a route, but she was willing to serve in a hard area to get to. She also had a few Blues on her route, but not very many--they were a dying breed.

Kim Michelle Richardson has written a thought-provoking book that will challenge the readers' prejudices and preconceived notions of what life has been like for people who are not like "us."

This is a five star book, with two thumbs up, and a library book delivered to you.

My thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Wow. The opening scene is powerful and vivid. And the blue-skinned people of Kentucky is intriguing and unique. I'd never heard of them before and love the historical attention.

Cussy is an interesting character, and I like how she stands out--not only because of the color of her skin, but because she is strong and forward moving. The cover is wonderful, and any book about books catches my attention. I love the 'book' aspect of the story.

Some of the story matter is difficult to get through - and covers matters I normally choose not to read. I feel much of the story was predictable, and I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending.

All in all, I enjoyed this book, as well as the title, cover, characters, and setting.

Unfortunately, I was unable to continue reading the book because it didn't catch my attention and I had difficulty continuing the rest of the book. Only read up to chapter 3. Maybe later I will pick it up again to see if I can read it all.

Sorry I had to DNF the book.

This book had me hooked from the start. After the author introduced some blue skinned characters to me within the first few pages of the book, I was asking myself: "What? Is this for real?" I immediately fact checked on the Internet to see if these kind of people actually exist and they do! Since I had never heard about the extremely rare congenital disease named methemoglobinemia that causes people's skin to look blue, I was fascinated with this book. Although the novel is a fictional tale of a blue Kentucky "Book Woman," it described many of the real struggles and triumphs of the Pack Horse Library Project (which was started by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his Works Progress Administration.) The project created jobs for women and brought books and other reading materials to the isolated and poor areas of Kentucky. I fell in love with the main character Cussy Mary Carter (sometimes nicknamed "Bluet" or the "Book Woman.") Despite having to face abuse, prejudice, and loneliness because of her blue features, she is strong willed, determined, and compassionate as she risks her life to bring reading materials to the extremely poor inhabitants of Troublesome Creek, KY. Besides enjoying the well crafted fictional parts of this novel, I also thoroughly enjoyed reading the author's notes about methemoglobinemia, the Pack Horse Library Project, and courting candles. It's always a treat to find out which scenes in a historical fiction novel are based on real facts, especially when you find out that some unbelievable scenes were really based on actual history! Thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. All thoughts expressed are my honest opinions of the book.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s. Cussy's not only a book woman, her belief is that books can carry us anywhere.

Good story. Beautifully written. Must read.

4.5☆

Tw: a slight mention of martial assault , suicide , and racism.

Ok, I got this arc a while back and I surely don’t regret it now. At first I was a little worried on that I wouldn’t like it. But I absolutely loved it. The authors writing was phenomenal and very intriguing.

The mc was pretty much had of her time and had blue skin. Which I find unique and I had no clue that there was actual people with blue skin .Plus they liked books and they showed how books was important.


Of there was ALOT of things that didn’t seat well with me . Like sexism, racism, and other stuff that would just make me scream . It’s a different time period and different ways of thinking.

I’m really glad that I got the chance to review this . It was such a emotional and exciting ride . One I would definitely buy to experience again and again .

This was a fascinating story about two topics that I knew nothing about...the pack horse librarians of the WPA and the 'blue people' of Kentucky. Cussy Mary is both. She has lived her life hidden away because of the superstitions and fear which follow her because of her blue skin (I looked it up and the people really were blue!). Her story is one of overcoming. She must overcome the fears of her neighbors in order to become one of the book women who delivered reading materials to the poor of the Appalachian back country. In Cussy Mary's case, she is bringing food for the mind, soul and body because she shares what little she has with her patrons, bringing books, magazines and newspapers, but also companionship and food. A great deal of research is evident in the author's writing and I would highly recommend this title to fans of historical fiction.

"This old land." Jackson stared off. "It sure makes a man yearn for it and want to flee it altogether." *

Cussy Mary Carter hasn't had an easy life.  She's isolated deep in a Kentucky holler, her mama's dead and her father is dying thanks to the conditions in the coal mines.  Not to mention the fact that she's blue.  No one understands why, but her folks and her all have an unknown condition thats been passed down through kin that leaves their skin tinged blue.  The local doc has been hounding Cussy and her daddy for ages to let him run some blood work and figure out their condition.

Their blue skin leaves them outcast in Troublesome Creek.  Folks are afraid of them, religious people seem to think they're an abomination.  Cussy is perfectly content to live at home with her father and bring in extra money as a pack horse librarian, thanks to Roosevelt's WPA program.  She loves reading and it brings her joy to travel the hills and bring books to folks so isolated they'd never have an opportunity to look at a book otherwise.  Unfortunately for her, Cussy's father made a promise to her mama that he'd make sure Cussy married and had a stable life.

Readers follow Cussy on her route and get to know her patrons who begin to welcome visits from "Book Woman".  Still, Cussy is careful never to offend or touch her patrons, many who remain fearful of her blue skin.

"Well, them cloths are a lot like folks. Ain't much difference at all. Some of us is more spiffed up than others, some stiffer, and still, some softer. There's the colorful and dull, ugly and pretty, old, new 'uns. But in the end we's all fabric, cut from His cloth. Fabric, and just that." *

Cussy's married off to a cruel local man but karma swiftly knocks him down ...dead.  She's only too happy to return to her home but before long her dead husband's kin,  the local preacher, begins following Cussy on her work route, accusing her of being evil because she's different.  

When the preacher turns up dead on Carter land, the doctor knows a second dead Frazier man involved with the Carters will look suspicious.  He uses the preacher's death to take advantage of the situation and Cussy agrees to the testing the doctor wants to perform if he'll keep Frazier's death a secret.

The doctor's testing leads to a diagnosis: methemoglobinemia, a genetic defect in an enzyme with reduced oxygenation of tissue, hence the blue skin tone.

Cussy wants nothing more than to belong.  When the doc offers a pill that will temporarily turn her skin lily white, she jumps on the chance to fit in with the folks in Troublesome.  

"Those that can't see past a folk's skin color have a hard different in them. There's a fire in that difference. And when they see you, they'll still see a Blue. No city drug's gonna change small minds, what they think about peculiarity. For them like-minded folks, there is no redemption for our kind." *

Pride is a powerful thing, even in a small town where folks are dying daily from starvation and refuse a hand out.  Some may see Cussy as an equal but most remain prejudice against what they can't understand.

Cussy takes her job seriously and feels it is an honor to teach folks how to read and offer them books either as an escape or a way to learn.  Her patrons appreciate her and she becomes a part of their lives in a small but powerful way.

Then comes the day that Cussy arrives at a patron's home and discovers a man hanging from a tree, a baby wailing at his feet.  What follows is a captivating tale of perseverance, love, and hope.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was heartbreaking and captivating!  I loved how Richardson managed to take two groups from Kentucky history, Pack Horse Librarians and the Blue Fugates ("The Blue People of Kentucky"), and create a fictional tale that shares the grim truth of life for many in Appalachia during the 1930's:  prejudice, isolation, starvation, pride, coal mines, and the intimidating company stores that kept families in danger and in debt.

If you appreciate Appalachian history, historical fiction, and unusual stories, this is a read I recommend!

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is scheduled for release on May 7, 2019.

*Quotes included are from a digital advance readers copy and are subject to change upon final publication.

In The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson weaves together two historical events to create an incredible story of a woman caught in the web of racism, superstition, hard times, love, and more. Cussy Mary Carter is the last Blue Carter, the last member of a family who have strange blue skin. In spite of her color, Cussy Mary works as a Pack Mule Librarian to deliver books and magazines to remote hollers and mountains in her corner of eastern Kentucky. Nothing is easy for Cussy Mary in this book. At times, I wondered what more Richardson could throw at her protagonist without breaking the young woman. Thankfully, Cussy Mary is the kind of person who will always get back up after she’s been knocked down.

We don’t meet Cussy Mary under the best of circumstances. Her father is determined to get her married and he doesn’t really care who. Potential suitors are thin on the ground because of the color of her skin. She’s caucasian but she’s not white. Like her father and some members of her family, Cussy Mary has blue skin. (When she blushes, other characters say she looks like a blueberry.) Some people think the blue is contagious; more are sure that any children she has will be blue. In spite of her protestations, Cussy Mary gets hitched to the only man who will take her, a truly horrible man who has the decency to have a fatal stroke before he can permanently damage her. Now known as either the Widow Frazier or her old nickname, Bluet (after the damselfly), Cussy Mary returns to her job as a pack mule librarian. If she can just dodge the people who are more than willing to abuse her, physically or verbally, because of her skin, she’s content with her life as a librarian—no matter how much her father grumbles about the need for her to be safely married in case anything happens to him in the coal mine.

So much happens in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek that it’s hard to believe that it all happens over the course of 1936. We follow Cussy Mary from her ill-fated marriage to her return to her route through the mountains. We also see the preacher stalking her, the man on the mountain who seems to like her and her color, and the doctor who will not let up until she agrees to let him try to cure her blueness. We see the best and (mostly) worst days of Cussy Mary’s 1936. To be honest, though, there were times when I was startled to be reminded that it was 1936. The people on Cussy Mary’s route are more likely to use herbs and folk remedies (such as “mad stones,” rocks that were believed to ward off rabies) than pay for a doctor. So little news makes it through that the mountains feel completely cut off from the rest of the world. Except for the occasionally reminder about World War I or vaccines, this book could have been set anywhere in the nineteenth or even eighteenth century.

The events of Cussy’s life not only help relate the stories of the Blue Fugates—the inspiration for Cussy’s Blue Carters—and the pack mule librarian program, but also the absurd cruelty of racial prejudice and the stubborn beliefs of backwoods Kentuckians. The only thing I didn’t understand about this book is Cussy’s devotion to her father. I loathed the man for most of the book. I consider his determination to marry his daughter off at the beginning of the book completely unforgivable. That said, there is a lot of food for thought in this book, assuming that readers can get past the brutal opening chapter of the book. Once I got past them, I was hooked by Cussy’s story. She reads like a quiet missionary, spreading the gospel of reading and educational betterment through books. Bad weather, worse roads, people who greet strangers with weapons, and a deeply disapproving father cannot stop her from delivering her battered books to her readers.

As a librarian myself, I do sway towards liking books about librarians, even if they're terrible. But this one is awesome. It really delves into the empowerment that the Pack Horse Library initiative brought to women of the time and enlightened me massively into what life in Troublesome Creek was like. It is not just the empowerment of the female librarians, but also beautifully explains the joy and change which reading and books can bring about. It was a joy to read, although the content is of course troubling and difficult at times, and I feel that if this was in my secondary school library, I would have to warn students about the marriage night scene which I found distressing. It's a lovely study on human nature, community, reading, love - in fact I would say it's a love story about being in love with reading, rather than the romance between characters (although that's good too). Fantastic book which I will definitely be recommending.

This story of Cussy Mary Carter, a “book woman” for the WPA in the hills of Kentucky during the Great Depression, tells about the heroic efforts of the real library women (and a few men) who traveled on horses or mules at great peril to deliver books, old newspapers, magazines, homemade scrapbooks of recipes and local folk remedies to people in the eastern hills of “Kaintuck” who were literally starving—for food, but also for reading material, letters, news, and stories that delivered hope, information and entertainment.

Author Kim Michele Richardson deftly puts people’s speech patterns into the local dialect and intimately describes the hardscrabble life of people who were eking out livings by coal mining and subsistence farming in the dark and barren hollers. But even more, she richly describes the customs and folklore of the region, the treacherous pathways to get to mountain schools and remote cabins, and the rare (and actual) blood disorder that affects Cussy Mary and her family and turns their skin blue, making them “colored” and subject to prejudice, isolation, and persecution.

How do people—and particularly, Cussy Mary and her family—survive and thrive in a time of hard living and isolation, prejudice, illiteracy, enslavement by coal companies and the resulting environmental issues and black lung disease? These are all interwoven into an immersive story that is suspenseful, heartbreaking, and hopeful. This corner of America in the 1930s is brought to life in a brilliant way, with so much to think about and to discuss.

Put this at the top of your list as it’s historical fiction at its finest.

I'm sure The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, is a lovely book and wonderful story. It may have just been me, but it was not really my kind of read, I did try and continue to no avail. Thank you so very much for the chance. #NetGalley

Put two things together - Appalachia and books - and you've got me. Then add in the Blue People of Kentucky and it is mind-blowing. Yes, blue people actually did exist in the hills of Kentucky, due to a genetic disorder with a lot of vowels that caused a lack of oxygen in one's blood. In Richardson's new book, she creates the character of Cussy Carter, a young "Blue" from Troublesome Creek who works as part of Roosevelt's social program delivering books to folks throughout the hill country. Riding on her stubborn mule, Cussy gets to know the unique characters that inhabit these hills, yet must also tolerate the racism and violence directed towards her, as we see the upheaval during the Great Depression, the fight to unionize coal workers, and the struggle to literally survive. This is a fascinating read, wretchedly sad at times, but ultimately heroic and hopeful.

I read the ARC of "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" by Kim Michele Richardson through NetGalley. This historical story is based in the Appalachian Mountains during the end of the Depression when women, typically, became traveling librarians on horses, mules or foot to readers in hidden corners of the mountains. I really enjoyed this novel which gave an accurate portrayal of the poverty and customs of real blue-skinned people of Kentucky. I am excited to have found a new author (for me) and will be seeking out Kim Michele Richardson's other novels now!

I really enjoyed this book. I was not born during the CCC or WPA era but I have been to the hills of Eastern Kentucky. In fact my son married a girl from there and they live there now. The hills over there are treacherous. The roads are bad, t can’t imagine paths thru the mountains.

I knew that Roosevelt did many things to help our country. My father worked for the TVA, another program of that time, but I was not familiar with the Book Women. I had heard of the Blue People and read articles about them. cussie Mary was a Blue person. People did not accept people of different color. And Cussie was no different. She was of color. She became a Book Womanonly by going around the two very prejudice librarians. Book Woman’s patrons looked forward to her visits each week

The hardships, the prejudice, the unkind actions are described in the book. It was very interesting. And I learned more from the story. Michele’s words bring pictures into my mind. She has a way with words. I would definitely recommend this book.

An intriguing look at the Bluets of the Kentucky hills, and the WPA library project of President Roosevelt's New Deal Acts. Though the story itself is fictional, any true historical facts are woven into the novel. Cussy Mary is one of the Bluets, and gained a position as a Pack Horse Librarian. This is the story of her struggles both on and off the book route. Racism, miners' unions, and pure hate were obstacles faced by these Kentucky people.

The Fugates of KY, carriers of a rare gene called methemoglobeinemia, had blue skin due to red blood cells carrying methemoglobin at levels higher than 1%. In laymen’s terms, the hemoglobin can carry oxygen but it’s not able to release it effectively to body tissues. This also makes the blood look like chocolate. Thanks medline plus!  This book is based loosely on that family and the struggles they faced, as they were considered “colored” in those times, as well as the WPA, the government’s Works Progress Administration, which was instrumental in helping create the book women in Kentucky, who rode miles on horseback, on mules, through hollers, up creeks, and anywhere they were needed in Kentucky to ensure that the library program was reaching people that had little been exposed to reading before. Most rural schools didn’t have a library so these women were exposing children and families to books and bringing the outside world to Appalachia in a way it had never been before. Ok, enough history, onto The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.
Troublesome Creek is a real place (about 113 miles southeast of Lexington), as was the WPA, the book women, and the blue Fugates. Ms. Cussy Mary, her patrons, her pa, her patrons, and the like are all a work of fiction, but it brings the region and the tale to life in an absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking, and sometimes rage inducing way. Her pa is a coal miner, because of course he is. There was very little other gainful employment in the region back then, and we get emotionally drawn in as his health and well-being is sacrificed in favor of others since he’s “just a blue” and isn’t considered as high value as the white miners. Richardson creates in Cussy (our protagonist, and a beautifully rendered woman of her time that values books above all else) a true gem. She knows just how to draw out each patron, what will work to get that recalcitrant patron’s interest in the library program, how to get that moonshinin’ father to let his boys read her books, how far one kind gesture can go in getting nearly an entire town to support her in a moment of need. But deep down, she still feels less than at some moments. She still wants to know what it feels like to not be considered less than because of the color of her skin. Doc offers her that when he discovers that she suffers from a gene disorder related to oxygen after a particularly violent visit to the hospital. Cussy has a choice to make at this point. Is she willing to accept herself as she is? As a certain patron of hers sees the inner beauty that she already holds? Or will she given in because of the hateful taunting and disgust that she sees on the faces of townsfolk when she visits the library center in town?
I got utterly sucked in by this book. Richardson has painted a picture from the unique characters, to the heartbreaking pain and poverty that ransacked the Appalachian region in the 30s. It’s a little bit history book, a little bit love story, some pain and some joy, all interwoven into the perfect kind of story for people that can share a kinship with the kind of woman that would ride miles to share her love of stories. If you love to read as much as I do, and would do just about anything to share the joy of books, this story is for you.