The Librarian of Boone's Hollow

Addie Cowherd has been called to the Dean's office just weeks before the finals week of her junior year in college.  She is being barred from finishing her term because of non-payment of her tuition and board.  She can stay in her room because she paid that up with funds from her job at the library in town.  She went to the post office on campus to see if she had any letters from her parents, who were paying faithfully for her college. She found that her father had lost his job when the bank where he worked had been sold.  Her parents had lost their house and were living in a boarding house. 

Addie goes to the end-of-the-term bonfire and meets Emmett Tharp, a business major who is graduating.  Neither of them think anything of that brief meeting. 

Addie is allowed to stay with one of the librarians she works with until her job with the library is finished.  Before her job is finished, the head librarian tells her of a job as a horse-back librarian in Boone's Hollow, Kentucky,  as part of the WPA program started by President Roosevelt.  Boone's Hollow is one of those back-woods areas where newcomers are not easily welcomed.  Because of the lady Addie chooses to live with while she's in Boone's Hollow, she is particularly not welcomed by any of the customers on her route. 

When the head librarian for Boone's Hollow takes ill, Emmett Tharp takes over as the head librarian.  One of the horse-back librarians, Bettina, thought she and Emmett had an understanding and saw Addie as competition for Emmett's attentions, and tried to thwart her whenever and wherever she could.

One of Addie's innovations for the library was to take well used magazines and make themed scrapbooks with them.  She worked hard to find a way to gain acceptance, and her first foot in the door was to write the story of her landlady's years in the Hollow. 

Kim Vogel Sawyer is one of the quality writers I am always excited to read. This book kept me involved from the very first page to the very end.  Her setting of the Great Depression makes the story very real, and reminds me of a book I read last year.  Both dealt with the mining areas of Kentucky, and the horseback librarians.  Kim's characters are unusual in that they are college educated during a time when money for that education was hard to come by. 

This is a five star book, two thumbs up, and someone willing to write your story.

WaterBrook/Multnomah and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are my own.