The Giver of Stars is the perfect book for people who love reading! This is such a stunning novel following five women who were all leading very different lives and all get brought together to become part of a travelling library! It’s set in depression-era Kentucky and it does immediately transport you to this time and I got swept up in it right from the very start.

I have to admit that I’ve found some Jojo Moyes books just okay but others I have loved. My favourite up to reading this one was The Last Letter To Your Lover but The Giver of Stars has beaten it for me. I got completely swept up in the story of these women and I can’t stop thinking about them and the lives they led. I want to know more about the women who really did do this work and I loved when a book sparks off an interest in me.

The novel is all about this small group of women and we see the bonds that gradually form between them. It really feels like such an empowering book, I adored it. The travelling library is based in a township but the patrons all live out in the most rural of areas so the women go out on horses to deliver books to these families. They go out in all weathers all year round each on their own route and I found it so inspiring.

The Giver of Stars predominantly follows Alice who is newly married and expects to learn about life with her new husband but things aren’t right with him from the start. She looks for ways to make it work and to make things better but nothing seems to help so she throws herself increasingly into her work at the library trying to at least find satisfaction in her own life. I loved Alice, I was rooting for her the whole way through the novel.

I was thrilled to be approved for an ARC of this book from NetGalley but I decided to buy a copy of the audio book from Audible so that I could part-read and part-listen and this really worked well for this book. The audio is wonderful and really brought the book to life even more for me so I recommend it.

I so often say that historical fiction isn’t my favourite genre but then I read a book like this that I fall in love with and immediately want to re-read and it reminds me that there are books out there for everyone in all genres, we just have to find the right ones for us. I highly recommend this book!

This was very different from the other books by JoJo Moyes, in that it is Historical Fiction, but I loved it no less. A really fascinating book, with very real characters you are really rooting for during their trials and tribulations.


It is set during the Depression in Kentucky, America, and is about the Packhorse Librarians, a group of women set up to deliver and collect books to the mountain folk in the area who might have no access to books or magazines and reading. The initiative was set up by the First Lady and the Librarians were paid, but it was a free service to the borrower's, and in many cases became a bit of a lifeline to them.


When bored, middle class Alice meets the handsome and dashing Bennett Van Cleave, and he proposes, she accepts with alacrity, and eagerly anticipates her new life in Kentucky, however things are not always as they seem. She soon realised when they move in with her infuriating father in law that she has swapped one set of problems for another. When at a town meeting they request riders for the new traveling library, Alice quickly volunteers, much to the upset of her husband and father in law.


Alice soon becomes friends with the other librarians, once their initial suspicion of her has worn of - both as an Englishwoman and as the wife of a Van Cleave - the owners of the coal mines. Her best friend is Margery - the leader of the librarians, who is a bit of an enigma in the area. Daughter of a well known drunk, unmarried, and with her own set of standards, but with a heart as big as Kentucky.


The book is their story. Their lives, their lives, their heartbreaks and their stresses, but most of all their love and friendship. A must read.

When English rose and newlywed Alice Wright travels halfway around the world to her husband’s home in Baileyville, Kentucky, she finds herself the talk of the (small) town. She married wealthy American Bennett van Cleve after a whirlwind romance, seeing it as a chance to escape her stifled life in England. However, Alice soon discovers how little she knows her new husband, and how much their lives are controlled by his over-bearing father.

Her fortunes change when she meets Margery O'Hare, the town’s tarnished spinster who carries her family’s unsavoury reputation on her shoulders. Margery is on a mission to spread the joy of reading to the poor and illiterate in the area by way of a travelling library, and so enlists Alice’s help. The mission gives Alice as purpose and a sisterhood she’s never had before.

Based on the real travelling libraries of the 1930s, which were ran by women in the deep south, The Giver of Stars is a joyful and uplifting story of friendship and fearlessness. Heart-warming and captivating, this is another masterpiece from Moyes.

Hooked from the start .... The whole book becomes so real.... You are completely wrapped in their lives,you become one of the characters.Fantastic read.

<i>Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.

The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky. </i>

Based on a true story, it's a vivid and engaging story of reaching beyond what and who you know, the power of books and the women involved in refusing to be stifled.

The book had me from the first page. The setting was unusual, the characters written with beautiful sensitivity, and a knack for noticing the little details that make the story feel so real. I was not aware of the Traveling Librarians, so the story felt unusual and unique.
Alice escapes stuffy England by marrying a dashing American, only to find he tucks her away in Kentucky and would prefer to forget about her altogether. Bennett has his own problems and is in the shadow of his overbearing father. But lonely, miserable Alice is left with no support or distractions. Until she is offered a lifeline and joins a group of misfit women offering a library service to remote families in the mountains, delivered on horseback. The group is head-up by Margery, a strong, independent, unconventional woman of her times.
The story in unpredictable and beautifully written. Each character is clear and charming and the landscapes well described. It felt like a film unrolling in my head. A memorable story about love, friendship, loyalty and being true to yourself.

For the first time ever I have found one of Jojo Moyes books that I couldn’t finish. I tried my best to get into The Giver of Stars due to loving the author but after a few chapters I gave up. Sorry not for me.

I can't express how much I loved this book.

Set in the 1930s in a rural area of Kentucky, this is the story of a fictional branch of the real horseback librarians

Alice is escaping her stifling life in England,
Margery O'Hare is unconventional and not the sort of person who Alice's new family think she should associate with.

'Margery's on a mission to spread the wonder of books and reading to the poor and lost - and she needs Alice's help.'

With three other unconventional woman, the horseback library is born - trekking through bleak countryside, braving the elements they deliver the power of the written word to families in the area against the wishes of the majority of the powerful men in Baileyville

This is the story of female friendship, of beating the bullies and reading - who could ask for more!

Jojo Moyes does it again - completely different read to Me Before You but just as good, if not better. I felt completely transported to the mountains of Kentucky and loved the troop of women who ran the library

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.

I'm not 100% sure about this book. I enjoyed the historical facts in the book, but I found the pace was a little slow at times, and the focus was more on the love life of some characters, where I feel it would have been better had it focused on the historical aspects more. There was very little on the books handed out and how they affected the lives of those gaining access to books for the first time.

Had it not been written by Jojo Moyes, I feel I may have given up on the book. I found myself interested in the characters, but at times the plot seemed to drag a little, and there wasn't much of an impact towards the end, where you would expect lots of drama.

Loved this book. Great characters, easy read, uplifting, funny, romantic and charming. A really nice story that is the perfect escapist read.

I have read lots of Jojo Moyes books but this one just wasn't for me. It was slow to get going and the women in this book were well described, but I just couldn't get into it.

A powerful read... emotional and interesting too... an amazing book but it dragged a little - couldn’t believe I’d only read 17% - it felt like I was already at 60% but well worth it in the end.
. Feisty women, a little bit of history and the setting in Kentucky combine to make this a good read.

I think this book will stay with me so overall it’s 4.5*

Another beautiful read from Jojo Moyes!
The characters were incredibly well developed and I loved the friendship between Alice and Margery.

This story is a slow burn at the start, setting the scene, establishing the characters and the background to the era, which I found incredibly helpful later on. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and went through a whole range of emotions as the story becomes established. The fact that it is a based on a true story makes it even more engaging! I developed huge admiration for this band of women and the hardships and conditions they faced to bring people library books. Their developing and enduring friendship is heart-warming. Thoroughly recommend this.

4.5 stars

I should know…know that when I read a Jojo Moyes book that it’s going to pack an emotional punch but with this blurb, I just didn’t see it coming. THE GIVER OF STARS had me invested quickly and feeling like a family member to the librarian sisterhood, so that when things happened, I felt devastated and scared to read on. The themes of misogyny, racism and feminism made this both emotional and empowering.

The context of reading, teaching poor and downtrodden women, children and men to read through the distrubution of books was in the background but it also powerful to observe. These women on their riding rounds also comforted the sick, grieving and took on the role of friends, confidentes and substitute mother figures.

I didn’t expect this book to be unputdownable, but it was as Moyes made the mundane work of Alice, Margery, Izzy and Beth’s lives totally readable and absorbing. Alice was the main protagonist, an English newly-wed, a little prissy but a genuinely sweet woman. The life she found in Kentucky was not at all what she expected and I tore my hair out over her and Bennett’s relationship. There were some revolting men in this book but then there were also some fantastic characters in Fred and Sven, they were the light in my reading and this book.

There was a second supporting protagonist in Margery and she really captured my heart. I loved her rebelliousness, her unconventional ways and willingness to be different. Her later storyline had me distraught, sad and prone to weeping. I just did not know where this book was going to end, there were so many possibilities.

I have come away from this read inspired. Jojo Moyes took me on a journey with this story and I am all the richer for it. This is historical women’s fiction at it’s best and I will remember this book for years, I am sure.

Thank you to Michael Joseph for the review copy.

I decided to read this novel on audiobook and I am glad that I did because this books takes place in Kentucky but with an English main character and the narration really brought this alive, the contrast between the accents and the contrast between Alice's way of life before and after her move to Kentucky.



This book is very much a plot driven book and so even though Alice is the main character and the person that we get to see the story unfold with, this book is about the whole community and it is also about the magic of libraries and the librarians who share their love of books with the people in that community. I love that this is such a love letter to books. It is just so wonderful to see on the page the power that books can have in so many different ways for so many different people. I loved seeing these librarians overcome the obstacles that they have to face and seeing them sharing their passion through the snow and the blistering heat and that was my takeaway from this novel, books are magic, libraries are the keepers of the spells.



Alice was an interesting character to spend time with over the course of this novel. She has string beliefs but she has been held down by the men around her her entire life and so when she begins to be able to show her strength it is a truly magical thing. She is appropriately surprised by the people and the way of life she finds out in small town Kentucky, as she would have been in the days before Wifi and YouTube. I loved the way she grows over the course of the book and I love the community that she finds with the people surrounding the library.



There are some care warnings that come with this book for domestic abuse definitely so just be aware of that when picking this one up. I felt like it was dealt with really well as part of the story and felt that it was fully explored in the context of the society and the time and so to me it just felt like part of the plot and part of showing the importance of having that community behind you.



I really enjoyed this novel, I really recommend the audiobook but highly recommend the book as a whole.

A young English woman, Alice Wright escapes a stifling 1930s English existence through her marriage to Bennett Van Cleve, only to find that life in her new Kentucky home is another sort of imprisonment. She finds an escape as a travelling librarian, working with the indomitable Margery O’Hare and others, spreading the joys of reading and literacy to isolated and often untrusting communities.
The women draw strength from and offer support to each other as they face obstacles including racism, misogyny and resistance to change. Threats to the women are mirrored in the threat to the stunning Kentucky environment from untrammelled mining. The relevance to modern-day issues is clear but never dealt with tritely, and the character relationships develop easily and believably.
A very enjoyable and moving novel about the civilising influence of books and knowledge and the strength of female friendship in an often hostile environment.

"Giver of Stars" by JoJo Moyes was a real treat to read, with a powerful message of friendship and what it takes to follow your passion in order to help others less fortunate. Beatifically written, this story is set in the Great Depression in Kentucky where a group of women set up a pack horse library to share books to those who would never otherwise be able to access them. It's a perilous journey but these women are dedicated to their mission.

What makes this story even more special to me, is that it's based on a real life pack of feisty women who actually did this during the 1930-40s! Although this story is fictional, I am sure what they went through during that time period - with the rough terrain, the racism, and lack of gun laws, (to name but a few things) we'd be hard pressed to find many people offering to do the same thing these days, under those same conditions.

This was so well written, from the abuse English woman Alice received by her father-in-law and her weak minded husband, to the unconventional library leader Margery O'Hare's murder trial, this book has got it all! I'll be honest, what started out for me as just a historical fiction book, became one of my favourite books this year!

Would make a perfect gift for anyone looking for an entertaining story where strong women prevail, against all odds, (and there were several!) during a time where men practically owned them. Superb!

Thanks to the publisher and #NetGalley for my ARC copy, this is my unbiased honest review of this book - I loved it!

The Giver of Stars is a wonderful story of female friendships and empowerment. Based on true events that saw local women deliver books through a travelling library on horseback to rural areas and mountains in Kentucky, USA. The relationships are wonderfully written and feel entirely genuine as all the librarians face difficulties in their personal lives and in their chosen career. Unfortunately I bought this book on my kindle, which mean I don’t own the beautifully illustrated hardback.