Excerpt from The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Didn't expect to see you or Cussy here till at least May. I was fixin' to journey over to Thousandsticks to drop off some hardware supplies for your pa and visit your family in a few days." He rubbed his long, gray beard, studying me.

We always looked forward to seeing Devil John. Several times during the year, me and Mama came back over to Troublesome to stay a couple of weeks during the fall and for almost two months in the summer. We would weed the Carter cemetery, visit her patrons, and then tend to the small grave site of my family, the Moffits. We'd spend a lot of time with Retta and some of Mama's other folk who'd been on her book route while Papa busied himself traveling to Tennessee on timber business.

I never understood why we hadn't moved out of the state—why Mama chose to stay in Kentucky. There'd been talk of moving to Tennessee or north to Ohio, but the notion got tamped down just as quick as it arose. Mama'd said she hoped to continue her important library work in Kentucky one day, and she couldn't bear to let her family's cabin go to rot and the Carter and Moffit cemetery go to seed. Troublesome was her home, her kin and ancestors' home, she insisted. And like Papa had remarked from time to time, sometimes with a wistful sigh: This ol' 'Tucky land sure makes a man yearn for it and want to flee it altogether. And you can sure 'nough have yourself one foot on foreign soil, but the other is always pointed home.

But today Kentucky had become our prison. And for the first time, I felt its shackles and choking ropes on me and my family. I looked away, thinking about my parents' brutal beatings this morning, trying not to let the sorrow reach my eyes.

"Everything okay over in Thousandsticks?" Devil John looked over my shoulder, expecting to see Mama.

"Mama's not with me today, sir." I glanced over at the woman who was studying a map of sorts. "She sent me back to visit Retta, while she, uh, takes care of things back home." My voice strained a bit and Devil John raised a brow. I couldn't tell him family business in front of a stranger, even though he was close friends with my parents and we never hid anything from him.

He turned to the woman beside him. "Miss Grant, this is Honey Lovett, the daughter of our decorated book woman, Cussy Carter Lovett. Cussy worked for our Pack Horse Library Project here and delivered books to us."

The woman looked up from the paper with sketching on it. "We had the same project over in Somerset, my hometown. Hi, call me Pearl, and I'm pleased to meet you, Honey." She smiled easily and lifted a hand, jangling her silver bracelet full of charms. "I love a good book and I'm going to need a lot where I'm going."

"Troublesome has itself a fine borrowing branch now," I told her quietly, liking her already because she loved the books.

Pearl didn't look much older than me, but her eyes said different. They were playful and spirited, yet held an edge of something troubling, maybe even a hint of sadness. I admired her hair, a stylish, short haircut full of soft curls like the Italian movie star I'd seen in some of the magazines Papa brought home from his Tennessee trips. Her riding britches had a lot more life to them than mine, and her tall, leather boots were stitched with fancy embroidery to match her gloves. I glanced down at Mama's old hand-me-downs, the three-dollar, leather-bitten boots, and pressed them closer to Junia wishing her fur would swallow them. Still, the young woman seemed friendly.

"Pearl's our new fire-tower watcher," Devil John said. "She got lost back on the path when I happened upon her. Thought I'd show her to the lookout."

Pearl shrugged sheepishly and held up a curling map. "Pie got us turned around about four miles back after we crossed the creek and my directions got wet." She petted the handsome piebald's spotted white and red neck, stroked his long strawberry mane.

Excerpted from The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson. Copyright © 2022 by Kim Michele Richardson. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.