What a beautiful tribute to the power of books, to the people of Kentucky, and to the women o who worked in the mines or as lookouts in the forest towers. If you loved Cussy Mary Carter in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, I suspect you’ll love her daughter, Honey Mary Angeline Lovett in this sequel.

I loved the Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek so much and this just didn’t live up to it at all in my eyes! It didn’t feel nearly as well written and I had a much harder time loving Honey than I did Cussy. It also felt as though the author was trying to fit way too many events and tid-bits of history into a short read. While it was nice to return to Troublesome and I enjoyed the happy ending, I had much higher expectations. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Thanks to Net Galley for an advanced reader's copy!

First, let me say that I loved the The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. I knew nothing about the Pack Horse library program or the "blue people", so it was great learning all that on top of a good story.

But Richardson's sophomore effort doesn't measure up. She took just about everything that was great in the first book and used it all over again. No matter how great the first book was, I didn't want to read it again.

Spoilers ahead---



[As I read, those little mental questioning comments started coming. Why in the world did Honey's parents request a 91 year old woman to be Honey's guardian? Who was paying the lawyer? Why didn't he do a much better job in preparing Honey for court? So a pack horse librarian job just opens (and stays open) as Honey needs a job? And she is given that job despite never having gone to school, being only 15-16 and then making suggestions for adults' reading choices?

If I were an editor, I would have liked to see a couple chapters from the parents viewpoint and what happened to them in prison. Then maybe give Honey a different job that also showcases strong Kentucky women, such as the coal miner or firewatcher. And finally, ease off on those terrible villains. (hide spoiler)]

This book is set in 1953, but the feeling is 50 years earlier since no one has a tv, telephones are rare, horses (and mules) are used more than cars. Queen Elizabeth was coronated that year, and the polio vaccine was invented.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the first book and maybe liked this one even more. It says it can be read as a stand alone, but I think to really get the full understanding you should have read the first. I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. Very well researched and I enjoyed the author’s note at the end.

This book is just as good as the first one. I love the way that you really don't have to read the first one to get this one. If you are a fan of family and books you will like this book. I love the way Kim Michele Richardson writes,
she puts you right in the place you are reading about. And I am not a big fan of historical fiction. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

4.5 shiny stars! This was such a beautiful tale about family, friendship, self reliance and survival. I had no idea it was the sequel (definitely going back and reading the first one now!) and I loathed putting it down at night. The characters were all wonderfully portrayed, sprinkled with amazing facts that had me running to Google a few times.

Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me take a peek at an early copy in exchange for my review. My opinions are my own.

This is the 2nd in the Book Woman series by Kim Michele Richardson. It can be read as a standalone but it is enriched by reading the backstory from the 1st in the series, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - which is one of my all time favorites. I loved both of these novels - they both are historical fiction at it's best. Richardson's character development is exceptional - the characters pop out of the pages. The descriptions of the setting are spot on for the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky - you are transported to the place as you read. The novel brings home the plight of women and poor families during the 1950's. The women are fighting against ignorance and racial as well as sexual prejudice. It is a wonderful novel and series for book clubs.
It is beautifully written - Inspirational - entertaining - definitely a worthwhile read!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC digital edition.

Unfortunately, I was unable to read this in the time allotted. It remains on my “to be read” list for the future.

I dearly loved Richardson’s The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (5 out of 5 stars), so I was very excited a sequel about her daughter was being written and published. Kim Michele Richardson did not disappoint with her continuation of her packhorse librarian story. Once again, I immersed myself in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky feeling love and compassion for the families within. Even though this book could be read as a standalone, it would make a much more understandable and enjoyable story if one read The Book Woman first.
Thank you so much @NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC! I truly appreciate it!

Thank you to netgalley.com for this ARC in exchange for a review.

Having read the first book, I was excited to receive a copy of the sequel. I was happy to be back in Troublesome Creek with its wonderful characters including the ones you are awful. This book centers on the Book Woman's daughter Honey and her relationships that she needs to form once her parents are arrested and jailed for being married and this violating the laws of Kentucky. It's crazy to think these laws still existed in the 1950's.

There are themes of race discrimination and gender discrimination as well as friendship and love.

This was a well done sequel.

Having attended college at the University of Kentucky, any book set in the bluegrass grabs my attention. The Book Woman's Daughter was no exception! You can feel the pain, hardship and love in this book and even though I read this book before The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, it all still made sense and definitely is okay to read as a standalone.

I won't recap the story line, because so many other reviews have already done this very well.

I almost stopped reading this book at the 20% mark because I thought the early relationship between Cussy and Pearl was written in a very predictable, juvenile manner. I am glad I stuck with the book,however. I ended up enjoying it and learned more about "holler living". I gave the Bookwoman 5 stars and I felt it was definitely a better read. I was bothered that Cussy fantacizes about possibly marrying a person that is not a "blue," even though she knows her parents are in jail for doing that.

Honey Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman from the previous novel, is a teenager who must fight against racism to gain her own independence. Hidden by her parents from prying eyes, Honey's mere existence is proof of a crime in the eyes of the law. When her parents get arrested, Honey must do whatever she can to stay free. Will the help of old and new friends and loved ones give Honey the support she needs to persevere?

I like Honey Lovett and the world that the author carves out for her in rural Kentucky, but the novel falls short in many ways. The author spends too much time repeating situations and scenarios where Honey, as well as her female friends, are subject to prejudice and violent acts. Despite how learned Honey is, especially regarding all of the books she has read over the years, she seems too naive and ignorant for someone trying to become an independent woman. Overall, The Book Woman's Daughter is too much of the same and does not capitalize on the success of the first book.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Reader's Copy by NetGalley and the publisher. The decision to read and review this book was entirely my own.

In The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek readers were introduced to the character Cussy Mary Carter who represented the blue skinned people of Kentucky and the pack horse librarian program. This second book in the series gives readers the story of her daughter, Honey.
While Honey doesn't have the blue coloring all over her body like her mother, she does have the gene mutation in her hands and feet. Like her mother Honey suffers from the continued prejudices of the Kentucky culture. Honey is left to fend for herself when the Kentucky law comes down on both of her parents. The law uses her parents actions against her and insists that Honey must be put into a reform school until she is 21 years old. Honey finds escape in work at her mother's old library and learning the value of friendship.
The struggles that Honey endures is overwhelming for the modern reader. To consider a young 16 year old girl surviving the wilderness on her own is hard to contemplate. However Richardson writes a compelling story that truly embraces both the prejudices and the laws of the Kentucky mountains. Honey represents all the struggles that young women had to encounter in order to free themselves from the old world mentality.
In addition, the audio recording is phenomenal!

Due to me writing down the pub date wrong, I missed posting my review of Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman's Daughter on time. However, here it is, and I highly encourage you to read this book, as well as its predecessor The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

The first book left off in 1936, but its sequel picks up in 1953. Honey Lovett is the daughter of the blue-skinned Pack Horse Librarian from Troublesome Creek. But when Honey's parents are imprisoned for breaking Kentucky's miscegenation laws, Honey finds herself back in Troublesome Creek, picking up her mother's old library route. Can Honey avoid being hauled off to a reform school for children or will working this job prove that she deserves her emancipation?

Reading this book made me so grateful that I live in a time when it's easy to get information from point A to point B. I can't imagine having to wait days or weeks to receive a message simply because I live in a house off the beaten path with no access to a telephone. But while I'm glad to live in a modern age, so many of the book's 1950s topics are still issues happening in 2022: racism, sexism, men making laws about what women can do. Honey points out that it's legal for her, as a 16-year-old, to get married in Kentucky and start having babies and living an adult life, but it's not okay for her to live an adult life if she's living it on her own.

This was a great continuation of the story that shows you what's happened to some familiar characters in the years since the first book and introduces you to some new favorite characters!

The Book Woman's Daughter is published by Sourcebooks and is on bookstore shelves now. I received a free e-ARC in exchange for this review.

Couldn't wait to read this follow-up to one of my favorite books, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, and it didn't disappoint. While it wasn't quite as engaging and fully developed as Book Woman, it was wonderful to read about the lives of these people during this time period. While the circumstances seem unique, there are many elements that unfortunately still ring true today. Richardson does a fine job of making the reader care about the characters and the deeper implications of the storyline. We will most likely choose The Book Woman's Daughter as one of our future library book discussion group titles since it gives so much to think and talk about. Thank you for the opportunity to review the title early!

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. The new novel can stand alone, but is likely better understood if you read the first novel. Moreover, I recommend reading the first novel because it’s better.

The Book Woman’s Daughter continues the story of the packhorse librarians in the Kentucky hills into a new generation. It is now the early 1950s. The protagonist is Honey Lovett, the adopted daughter of Cussy Lovett, who was the book woman in book one. Honey is now sixteen years old, still living in Kentucky but miles away from Troublesome Creek. Her biologic mother was a “Blue,” having inherited a genetic mutation that gives her skin a blue color. Honey also has the mutation, but it is weakly expressed. Only her hands give her away in times of stress.

Cussy Lovett (Honey’s adoptive mother) is a “Blue.” Her adoptive father is not. And so, the couple has fallen afoul of the state’s miscegenation laws. At the novel’s opening, the sheriff has come to arrest Honey’s parents. A social worker has come for Honey, to put her away in a children’s prison, doing hard labor, until she turns 21. Fortunately, the family prepared for this, and Honey is able to escape.

She returns to Troublesome Creek to live with an old family friend. Along the way, she makes a new friend, Pearl, who is about to become the first female fire-tower watcher in Kentucky. The reader is also introduced to Cussy’s old friends (another librarian, a moonshiner, and some of the old library patrons.)

Honey has a lot to overcome. There remains a good deal of prejudice about “Blues” but for Honey persecution over her skin color is less of a problem than being a young female on her own.

The novel focuses primarily on the rampant sexism in 1950s Kentucky. In addition to Pearl, who is being targeted by men who want her job, there is Bonnie, a coal miner’s widow who has to enter the mines to support herself and her child. Bonnie is constantly sexually harassed by the men. And there is Guyla Gillis, the wife of Perry Gillis, a wife-beating coal miner who also threatens Bonnie, Pearl, and Honey.

Fortunately for Honey, she’s given the job of packhorse librarian and takes up her mother’s old route. Having a source of income and a job she loves helps her to become more independent.

The plot of the novel focuses on Honey’s growing independence. All the while, she’s also trying to find out what happened to her parents. She has a very kind, devoted lawyer. And she has the support of a local doctor who steps in when Honey discovers her mother is being mistreated in prison. (She was forcibly sterilized, for one.)

Unfortunately, Honey must also contend with Gillis, who is evil through and through, as well as with the social worker and the lawyer for the state, who are nasty bigots who go to great lengths to try to drag Honey back into the system, seemingly out of a hatred for Blues and an irrational fear of and hatred for books.

The novel is interesting and Honey is a sympathetic character. However, the newness of the packhorse librarian story and the fascinating look at the Kentucky “Blues” that made The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek such a wonderful read have lost their freshness. And while Honey is a well-rounded, well-portrayed protagonist, the supporting cast falls flat. The evil people in the novel are one-dimensional. The good people are fairly bland. Moreover, the final courtroom scene feels too preachy or speechy. So while I did enjoy this novel, it was somewhat disappointing after the original.

THE BOOK WOMAN’S DAUGHTER is the sequel to THE BOOK WOMAN OF TROUBLESOME CREEK. Honey Marie Angeline Lovett is the daughter of a Blue, a condition that makes her both an outcast and the product of an illegal marriage. Her parents are accused of breaking the miscegenation laws and Honey is trying to forge her own path, staying one step ahead of the state social worker and sheriff who want to put her in a horrid children’s home. She follows in her mother’s path, getting a job working as an assistant librarian where she and her cantankerous mule deliver books to various folks in the Kentucky mountains. Honey even makes a best friend, a young woman named Pearl who is working as a fire watcher and has her own battles to fight in a job generally filled with men. Can Honey avoid being sent to the children’s reform school and make a living on her own or will the prejudices against her skin color and gender continue to overshadow her life?

I loved the story of Honey’s mother detailed in the prior book, but I love Honey’s story even more! Unlike her mother, Honey is generally able to hide her blue skin as it only shows on her hands and feet, particularly when she’s agitated or upset. Honey’s caring character shows through in all her relationships and her desire to be respectful to authority while wanting to maintain her own freedom is admirable. Her friendship with Pearl is charming, and the slice of life we see beyond the boundaries of Honey’s world are fascinating as we see the prejudices and hardships women face even without blue skin.

Kim Michele Richardson continues to showcase the hardships women faced in the 1950s while also giving us further insight into the packhorse librarian program and how it survived after the federal funds dried up and the role of fire watcher. Issues of discrimination based on race and gender are at the center of the story, but even more intriguing to me was the convoluted logic of the time that allowed a woman to marry at a young age (and not always by choice) but not live on her own. Readers who enjoy seeing a bit of the past brought to life will relish THE BOOK WOMAN’S DAUGHTER as Kim Michele Richardson does a marvelous job at making every aspect of the story line come to vivid life!

*review is in the editing queue at Fresh Fiction*
*book will also be mentioned in an upcoming article*

I loved this book! As a librarian, I am very interested in the Kentucky Packhorse Librarians project and this sequel to The Book Woman from Troublesome Creek was great! I felt the sorrow and grief that Honey felt as she went through her journey. I loved the addition of the Kentucky fire tower watch and how woman's rights were brought into the book. Overall, a great book!

Anyone who loved The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek will love this just as much. It follows the story of the Book Woman's teenage adopted daughter Honey, also a Blue, though only showing in her hands, who must fend for herself when her parents are arrested and put in prison because of the Kentucky miscegenation laws. Honey finds other strong minded women to help her, and when the local library starts up the packhorse library route, she and her mother's mule Junia jump at the opportunity. But things are never easy in the remote hills and hollows of Appalachia, and attitudes and beliefs can be backward and entrenched, so Honey knows she will have to be careful and fight hard to maintain her own freedom.
And Honey has an awful lot thrown at her, sometimes almost unbelievably so. She at times seems wise beyond her years, and other times far too innocent for her age and experience, but I suppose that is true of most 16-year-olds. Still, it's quite a roller-coaster ride, so hold on tight. There are some familiar faces from the previous book, and lots of new people. Reading the first book is not really necessary, but certainly adds a great deal more depth. Honey is a warm, engaging character distinct from her mother. A fast, exciting, enjoyable read. Highly recommended.
My copy was an eARC from NetGalley.