Like other reviewers, I find their thematic overlaps certainly notable, but I see nothing of plagiarism or idea-theft as they tell very different stories. Both novels include scenes of domestic violence and racism, and both novels allude to the desperate poverty of the hillfolk and the unionization of Kentucky coal miners, but their styles and emphases are certainly different. Both novels fictionalize the lives of the lady pack horse librarians and, yes, both novels touch on issues of race and hunger, but Moyes’ novel focuses heavily on the labor disputes at the local coal mine while Richardson’s novel contemplates the issue of race and medical research. Months after Richardson’s book came out, Jojo Moyes’s novel, A Giver of Stars, did too (causing a stir in the book world as Richardson purported to observe troubling overlaps between the two novels). Kim Michele Richardson’s historical fiction, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (2019), builds upon two fascinating and lesser-known histories of 1930s Appalachia: the pack horse librarians and the blue-skinned people of Kentucky.
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