The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes is a solid novel set in the Appalachia area of Kentucky, in 1937-1938.
The main character Alice Wright is from England and marries Bennett Van Cleve from Baileyville, KY. She gets to America and finds herself in a loveless marriage, also living in the same house as Bennett's horrible father, who owns the local mine.
Alice signs up to work as part of an initiative from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to have a traveling library delivering books by horseback to people living outside of town. The mobile library program had already begun in Harlan County, KY and was now introduced there in Lee County. The Baileyville WPA Packhorse Library came from the name of Roosevelt's program that ran from 1935 to 1943, serving more than a hundred thousand rural residents of eastern Kentucky, many living in distant hollers. The leader of the mobile librarians is Margery O'Hare, dating Sven Gustavsson, and other librarians along with she and Alice are Izzy, Beth, and Sophia.
The body of local drunk Clem McCullough is found in the woods, with a library book by him. Margery, now pregnant, is arrested for the murder and gives birth while in jail. Bennett, in a break from his father who hates Margery, tells Alice that the sheriff never spoke to the McCullough daughters, and Alice, Beth, Izzy, and Kathleen Bligh (who started working for the library) ride up to their cabin. Margery is acquitted due to the (false) testimony of Clem's daughter, Verna. It's a nice book.
