When an explosion at the mine kills workers and damages the CR Company, the Boden family is plunged deep into the heart of trouble yet again. As they try to identify the forces against them once and for all, Cole Boden finds himself caught between missing his time back in the east, and all that New Mexico offers--namely, his family and cowgirl Melanie Blake.

The decade following World War II becomes one of tragedy, excitement, and unexpected change for the five Novak children and the residents of their western Pennsylvania community of company houses, church festivals, and union squabbles.

Paul Morel's childhood and early manhood in the English midlands are deeply affected by his devotion to and concern for his dominating mother.

"West Virginia, 1869 Three years ago, Dr. Daniel Kavanagh settled down in the quaint town of Mount Laurel and established a medical practice there. The single doctor has been nursing an unrequited crush on Serena Norman, the local schoolteacher. Just downthe road lies the coal mining town of Owenduffy, considered by most in Mount Laurel to be a backwoods hamlet. When the mine company's doctor abandons his post, Daniel agrees to visit one day a week,...

After witnessing a terrible coal mining accident, Detective Isaac Bell hunts for the high-level saboteurs he believes are responsible.

In 1957, problems at the mine threaten to ruin Christmas for fifth-grader Don, his family, and the rest of their Oklahoma coal town, but Don's bloodhound, Frank, is determined to do whatever it takes to make the holiday special for Don and his six-year-old sister, Susan. Alternate chapters are told from the human and canine points of view.

A ninth-grader who works with his father in the local supermarket describes the plague of meth addiction that consumes many people in his Pennsylvania coal mining town from 9/11 and the nearby crash of United Flight 93 in Shanksville to the Quecreek Mine disaster in Somerset the following summer.

Uncovers the sobering resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, the cover-up activities of the coal mining industry, and the awareness activities of regional mining communities.