Addie Cowherd dreamt of being a novelist and offering readers the escape that books gave her during her tragic childhood. But it's the Great Depression, and when her adoptive father loses his job, Addie is forced to leave college and take the only employment she can find: delivering books on horseback to poor coal mining families in the hills of Kentucky. The community of Boone's Hollow is suspicious of outsiders and steeped in superstitions that leave Addie feeling rejected and indignant. She finds a friend in an elderly outcast, but the other horseback librarians scorn her determination to befriend Nanny Fay. Emmett Tharp grew up in the tiny mountain hamlet, and he is was the first in the community to earn a college degree. When someone sets out to sabotage the library program, Emmett may be the local ally that Addie needs.