"Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond, from the author of Me Before You and The Peacock Emporium. 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...

"In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library...

Clara's dream of enriching her rough life on the family farm is fulfilled when a horse-drawn book wagon visits with the country's first traveling library.

"Five-year-old Pari accompanies her mother on her library bus rounds for the first time, stopping at a village and a refugee camp so that girls there can exchange books and have a lesson in English. Talking with her mother as they drive, Pari learns that she is lucky that she can attend school the next year. Pari's mother had to learn in secret when it was forbidden to teach girls to read, and the young women the bus visits weekly have no other access...

"After amassing piles of books, Luis, a voracious reader, dreams up a way to share his collection with 'faraway villages.' He starts with two burros--one for himself, one for books--and heads off. Tough terrain and menacing bandits challenge him along the way, but at last he reaches a remote town, where he holds a story hour and loans titles to eager kids before returning home to his wife and reading late into the night."--Amazon.com.