" Inspiring short biographies of some of Kentucky's unsung heroines -- Jenny Wiley, Lucy Audubon, Malinda Gatewood Bibb, Laura Clay, Enid Yandell, Cora Wilson Stewart, Mary Breckinridge, Alice Allison Dunnigan, and Loretta Lynn. These women had a vision of a better life for themselves and for others and the courage to make their ideas become real.

The Big Sandy River and its two main tributaries, the Tug and Levisa forks, drain nearly two million mountainous acres in the easternmost part of Kentucky. For generations, the only practical means of transportation and contact with the outside world was the river, and, as The Big Sandy demonstrates, steamboats did much to shape the culture of the region. Carol Crowe-Carraco offers an intriguing and readable account of this region's history from the days of the venturesome Long Hunters of the eighteenth century, through the bitter struggles of the Civil War and its aftermath, up to...