The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson Series: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek #1
on July 10, 2026
Genres: Fiction / Historical / General, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Places / United States, Fiction / Sagas, Fiction / Small Town & Rural, Fiction / Women
Pages: 496
Format: Audiobook
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"Cussy Mary Carter is the last of her kind, her skin the color of a blue damselfly in these dusty hills. But that doesn't mean she's got nothing to offer. As a member of the Pack Horse Library Project, Cussy delivers books to the hill folk of Troublesome, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times. But not everyone is so keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and the hardscrabble Kentuckians are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble in their small town. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman's determination to bring a little bit of hope to the darkly hollers"--
There is something special about well-written fiction. Where the words, the story take you to a time and place with experiences you never had, can never have, and your life does not offer relatability. But there you are, living that life as though you are there. Kim Michele Richardson did that for me with this book. I can’t begin to tell you what I liked, didn’t like, or really anything better than the synopsis. But I can tell you how I felt listening to it. And shout out to the Book Girls Guide for putting this book on my radar.
While I’ve heard of the Blue People of Kentucky and had never really given it much thought. I understood that they were isolated, so I didn’t really give much thought about how their lives would have played out with other people, community (or lack thereof), and how that would impact their lives and opportunities. Cussy opened that door for me, and I’m not sure I can ever close it. Not that there’s reasonable probability that I’ll ever meet a blue person, but that they exist(ed). There’s a lot of history here that truly does intrigue me, and you can see the research the author did to present the information in a way that was honest, authentic, but also gripping to a human who lived it. I think the real eye-opener was just that those of brown skin tones were the subject of segregation laws, but any non-white skin tone. Colored. That in reality she was white could have presented as white once the condition was understood and a cure was found, but she chose not to for all the reasons says a lot. She was white but treated as colored. She chose colored. When so many didn’t have a choice, it’s what she chose.
Honestly, this book makes me think of my Dad. He was a mostly native kid at the tail end of the Dust Bowl in southeast Oklahoma. He also had a disability that made him different. He doesn’t really talk about it a lot, but I know that there were prejudices he encountered for both his reddish-brown skin color and his seizures. Those hardships he must have suffered makes me think of Cussy as well. She endured a lot, and the author doesn’t hold back. She doesn’t make it graphic really, but she makes it real and gritty. I have no idea why a Blue woman from Kentucky makes me think of a native boy from Oklahoma, but here we are. Overall, this book isn’t something I can tell you about, but I can tell you how it made me feel. I hope I made it clear as mud for ya 😀
About Kim Michele Richardson
A native-born Kentuckian, Kim Michele Richardson is the New York Times, L.A. Times, USA Today bestselling author who has written six novels, a memoir and most recently, two children’s picture books The works have been published in more than 18 languages, and she is a two-time Southern Book Prize finalist. Her novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is taught widely in high schools and college classrooms and has been adopted as a Common Read selection by states, cities, and colleges across the country and abroad. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was a Favorite Read by Dolly Parton in People’s Magazine. Kim Michele was inducted into the Kentucky Women’s Remembers Exhibit in the state capitol in 2025 by Gov. Andy Beshear for her contributions to Kentucky, and was awarded a Doctorate in Humanities from Eastern Kentucky University. In 2026, Kim Michele received The Humanitarian Award by Santa Barbara Book Festival for her work in literature and the world. She lives with her family in Kentucky and is the founder of Shy Rabbit, a writers residency, and a literacy initiative Courthouses Reading Across Kentucky & Beyond.
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