Jojo Moyes Has Been Accused Of Publishing A Novel With “Alarming Similarities” To Another Author’s Book

Richardson, who was born in Kentucky and lives in the northern part of the state, said she first started researching her novel in 2015 and floated the idea to her agent in July 2016. She rented a cabin near the Appalachian Mountains in South Carolina for a year in order to conduct research for the novel. In July 2017, she sent a finished manuscript to her agent, Stacy Testa.

Testa sent the manuscript to Kensington Books, the publisher of Richardson’s prior two novels, under the working title The Borrowing Branch. Kensington and Testa couldn’t agree on a deal, so the book was put up at auction and submitted to a number of publishers, including imprints at Penguin Random House, though not to Pamela Dorman, Moyes’ imprint. In October 2017, the Illinois-based independent publisher Sourcebooks bought the manuscript, changing the title to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. An announcement of the deal, which included a brief description of the novel’s plot, ran in the widely read trade publication Publisher’s Marketplace in November 2017.

On Sept. 23, 2018, electronic galleys of Book Woman were made available on the websites Netgalley and Edelweiss, and advance review copies of the book were circulated to librarians, book bloggers, and members of the public, the latter through galley giveaways on Goodreads.

In March 2019, Publishers Marketplace announced a forthcoming novel by Jojo Moyes, to be titled The Giver of Stars, “based on The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, featuring five women and their journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond.”

Richardson said that while she was slightly unnerved that two novels about the packhorse librarians would be released within five months of each other, she assumed she and Moyes had come up with similar ideas organically and hoped readers would be interested in both books.

But in April, when galleys of The Giver of Stars were first made available, a book blogger reached out to Richardson and called her attention to some similarities between the two novels. Richardson started reading the new galley herself — and taking notes. BuzzFeed News has verified that the passages referenced are included in finished copies of both books.

The following descriptions of passages are paraphrases of each book’s plot, written by Richardson, not quotations from the text. Page numbers for The Giver of Stars were changed to match the finished copy of the book. In the finished copy of The Giver of Stars, the character referred to as Sophie is actually named Sophia. Where Richardson referenced direct quotations, they’re marked as such.

1. BOOKWOMAN, Richardson 5/7/19 Sourcebooks

Chpt 5 Pg 36

Hillman Vester Frazier lies in wait in the woods for female librarian Cussy, accosts her, and accuses her of “Doing the devil’s work by carrying sinful books to good and Godly folks. You’re unclean, born of sin….You’re a devil, girl.” Then there is a scuffle and the librarian’s mule lurches towards Frazier and tramples him.

THE GIVER OF STARS, Moyes, 10/8/19 Penguin

Prologue Pg 4

Hillman Clem McCullough lies in wait in the woods for female librarian Margery, accosts her, and says, “You think we don’t know what you’ve been doing? You think we don’t know that you’ve been spreading among decent, God-fearing women. You got the devil in you, Margery O’Hare, and there’s only one way to get the devil out of a girl like you.” Then there is a scuffle and the librarian’s mule lurches, stumbling. The hillman is knocked to the ground and trampled by the mule.

2. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 13 Pg 109-111

Hillman Frazier goes missing after he attacks librarian. He is dead.

THE GIVER OF STARS

Prologue, Pg 2; Chpt 18, Pg 282

Hillman McCullough goes missing after he attacks librarian—later he is found dead.

3. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 8, Pg 66, Chpt 36, Pg 233

Introduction of Queenie, who is a smart, strong, black librarian who works for the packhorse library project. She later goes to work at a library in a city where she will be more accepted and sends letters back home to Cussy. Chp 36, pg 233 Queenie’s handwriting is described as ‘elegant’.(In the history of the packhorse librarian a black librarian was never hired)

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 5 Pg 86, Chpt 28, Pg 384

Introduction of Sophie, who is a smart, strong, blackwho becomes part of the packhorse project. She has previously worked at a colored city library and we learn at the end of the book that she return to work at the city library and sends letters to the girls back home. Chpt 7 pg 113 Sophie’s handwriting described as ‘elegant’.

4. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 20, Pg 143

Mention of the book THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl S. Buck.

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 3, Pg 45

With thousands of books to choose from there is mention of the book THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl S. Buck.

5. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 46, Pg 270

Librarian Cussy is gifted a book of poetry by her love interest, Jackson, with an inscription marking a favorite poem for her to read.

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 9, Pg 153

LibrarianAlice is gifted a book of poetry by her love interest, Fred, with a paper marking a favorite poem for her to read.

6. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 46 Pg 274

Librarian Cussy and her love interest Jackson are married on a glorious October day, in town, with patrons and librarian co-workers attending. Cussy is taken aback by the many well-wishers. Cussy and Jackson have already adopted a child together before their marriage. She is 3 months old when they marry. (This is where I ended my manuscript when it was on submission. Later after it was bought, I added to and changed the denouement)

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 28 Pg 381

Librarian Margery and her love interest Sven are married on a clear, crisp October day, in town, with patrons and librarian co-workers attending. Margery is taken aback at the many well-wishers. Margery and Sven already have a child together out of wedlock before their marriage. She is about 3 months old when they marry.

7. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 46 Pg 275

Cussy and Jackson are given a wedding gift of a home-made quilt.

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 28 Pg 382

Margery and Sven are given a wedding gift of a home-made quilt.

8. BOOK WOMAN

Chpt 10, pg 82

Patron Martha Hannah asks Librarian Cussy, “Would you have any Women’s Home Companion?” “Be obliged to git one. Nester Rylie’s been reading it, and she told me in passing last year, she ain’t rubbed groundhog brains on her babies’ sore teeth or needed to use the hen innards on the gums of her teething ones since.”

THE GIVER OF STARS

Chpt 4, Pg 73

Patron Kathleen Bligh asks Librarian Alice, “Have you got any of those Women’s Home Companions? This baby is just the devil to settle right now and I was wondering if they had anything would help? Miss O’Hare brought me some a while back and they had advice on all sorts.”

The question of whether areas of overlap between the two novels might rise to the level of copyright infringement is not necessarily clear-cut.

“The courts would have a substantial similarity test,” said Del Pizzo. “In order to do this test the court would look at a hypothetical ordinary observer of the two works and ask, ‘Would that hypothetical ordinary observer find that the two works are substantially similar?’ If they would say that’s a complete copy of the other book, that would be one thing, but it gets grayer when it’s not so clear whether it is. If we’re talking about books, there are certain themes or concepts that are not protectable; for instance, there can be more than one book out there that is about a love story. That’s not protectable, the idea of two people falling in love. But certain characters might be.”

Del Pizzo also explained that the timeline of publication would likely be an important factor. “Some of the evidence that would likely be in one of these cases is when the book was published, when it became available on the market, how likely was it for the other person to have access to it? Are there facts that show the other person actually read it? So there’s a lot of factors that go into it that could be different case by case. That’s why it’s so hard to just take one example and say ‘yes, this is copyright infringement’ and ‘this is not.’”

Richardson alerted Testa to the similarities she’d noticed between her book and Moyes’, and Testa, who declined to comment on the record, reached out to Sourcebooks in August 2019. “We were made aware of the similarities and upon review by our legal team, it was determined that Sourcebooks would not be taking any further course of action,” Kennedy told BuzzFeed News in an email.