BOOK REVIEW: The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

 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.