British novelist Jojo Moyes (Me Before You), known for her sweeping romances, artfully places platonic female friendship, rather than passion, at the axis of this tender novel. Never content in the droll parlors and suffocating expectations of Depression-era British society, Alice Wright anticipates her marriage to American Bennett Van Cleve to be her adventure, at last. But when her husband brings her home to Baileyville, Ken., she discovers the States are not so different from Britain in their expectations of women. Increasingly bored in the claustrophobic churches of rural Kentucky, Alice jumps at the chance to contribute when a local packhorse library announces a need for volunteers.
As a librarian, Alice travels the mountains alongside the bold Margery O'Hare, whose tarnished family reputation doesn't bother her--she is pointedly self-sufficient--and a gaggle of other complex women. These characters provide the town with books and The Giver of Stars with a backbone. Moyes masterfully shuffles narratives as Alice and Margery deal with crumbling relationships, secret romances and their mutual love for Baileyville, even as its societal norms push them into corners. When each woman experiences violence at the hands of men, and Margery is wrongfully blamed for it, Moyes nicks a nerve. Margery says, "I thought I could live as I wanted, long as I didn't hurt nobody.... You don't get to do that.... Not if you're a woman." Inspired by the real Pack Horse Library Project of the 1930s, The Giver of Stars is as observant as it is heartfelt. --Lauren Puckett, freelance writer