Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The very first chapter, first sentence is rather telling of how the wealthy Brit and her editors greedily rushed their manuscript to print without doing any research. "It was, everyone agreed, fanning themselves outside the store or passing in the shade of the eucalyptus trees..." Moyes has native Australian Eucalyptus trees growing in eastern KY. A fantasy. They can’t grow there and never have. This important library initiative and the KY pack horse women and men deserved better than a Brit trying to write their history in a ‘fevered frenzy over the holidays’ as Moyes claimed. Made it up to page 20 when I discovered additional historical errors in passages which stopped me cold. “I am asking for some ladies to contribute to our civic good and sign up. The WPA will provide the horse and books.” These Kentuckians were not volunteers. The librarians had to supply their own horses and all the books. FDR initiated the book program to put the poor women of eastern KY to work. 1930s in KY was filled with abject poverty and extreme starvation. Kentuckians certainly wouldn’t have allowed a foreigner to come in and take their jobs and steal food out of their families mouths and off their tables... though it feels like this is exactly what Moyes has done. There are countless other inaccuracies and exhausted clichés and stockpile characters throughout, from the collards and apple pie moonshine which were not present at that time, to the offensive dumbing-down and exhaustive, recyclable use of 'hillbilly'. Like many others stated in their reviews above, I agree it doesn't pass the smell test, and Moyes weak defense of zeitgeist strains credulity. Buzzfeed reported in its article that while Moyes publisher was reviewing Richardsons finished manuscript in September 2017, Moyes wrote a giddy post on her public Facebook page seeking excuses/exonerations/ideas should the day come if she got caught and or was accused of borrowing liberally by writing what someone else already did. Many professional educators, teachers and librarians will tell you if a dozen or twelve dozen people are asked to write 25 words about the same topic they will all write different versions. All damning and revealing. British romance author Moyes has given a poor representation of the beloved relief program about these indomitable women and the crippling times they lived through, to capitalize on gaining more wealth and fame by using KY and its people to try to claim something which a native Kentuckian had first. Moyes has been accused of this before in 2009 and because its rarely a first time, only a ‘first time getting caught’, I hope the KY author of the original work not only goes after Moyes civilly in the courts but also pursues it criminally which under CI law would mean a stiff fine and prison sentence.