The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

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By Olivia Herrell

The year is 1936 and our setting is deep in the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY. Cussy Carter, known as Bluet among her fellow mountain folk, is the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. Cussy is lonely but doesn’t want to marry. To escape her father’s attempts at matchmaking, Cussy joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky, which has rules against employing married women. On her faithful mule, Cussy rides across slippery creek beds and up dangerous mountainsides to deliver books and magazines to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Many historical fiction novels veer so far from the history they are based on, that it is difficult to believe, even for a moment. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is not one of those many. Troublesome Creek is a real place in Breathitt, Perry and Knott counties. The Pack Horse Library Project was a real effort to bring books to Eastern Kentucky between the years of 1935-1943. And, though they seem to be something of urban legends, the Blue People of Kentucky are real too, the last known descendent of the Fugate family was born in 1975. Though isolated inbreeding did not help things, the rare occurrence of the blue tinted skin is caused by a recessive methemoglobinemia gene. Richardson did move up the date of discovery for the research on this gene for her story, in history doctors discovered the methemoglobinemia gene and ways to treat it in the 1960s.

To read the entire review by Chistina Baker Kline visit Visit Henry County Local for a complete review of this book at the following address: Book Review