Set in the Yorkshire Dales during the 19th century, The Miner's Wife by Diane Allen is a sweeping historical saga novel. Nineteen-year-old Meg Oversby often dreams of a more exciting life than the dull existence she faces at her family’s farm deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Growing up, she’s always sensed her father’s disappointment at not having a son to help with the farm work. So when Meg dances all night at the local market hall with Sam Alderson, a lead miner from Swaledale, a new light enters her life. Sam and his brother Jack show Meg a side to life she didn’t know existed. But when her parents find out, she’s forbidden from ever seeing them again. Although where there is love, there is often a way. When Meg’s uncle offers her the chance of helping to run the small village shop, she leaps at the opportunity, seeing it as a way to escape the oppressive family farm and see more of her beloved Sam. But as love blossoms, a darker truth emerges and Meg realizes that Sam may not be the man she thought he was . . .
Following the accidental death of her husband, Annie McKee is determined her boys will not grow up to work in the coal mines. It's been a struggle for the young widow to make ends meet, but she wants her sons to have a better life--far removed from Heather's Hollow, Kentucky. To give them that chance Annie needs a good job. And she needs the help of Patrick Kirkpatrick. Her husband's best friend offers to help Annie study for her general education degree, and things get complicated when she and Patrick realize they have feelings for each other. But how can Annie fall for a man who is determined to stay in the one place she must leave behind?
A diary account of thirteen-year-old Anetka's life in Poland in 1896, immigration to America, marriage to a coal miner, widowhood, and happiness in finally finding her true love.
In the year 2076, the Tiberius Group invades U.S. society, implementing a new plan for the good of its citizens giving woman new rules. Three women auctioned off in separate venues to genetically bred strangers are uniquely destined to discover love in unusual places.
Growing up in a mining family, Cath's husband Doug promised his father he wouldn't follow in his dangerous footsteps. But after struggling with terrible poverty in 1970s Scotland, Doug decided a pit job would provide his wife and young family much needed security, despite extraordinary risks to life and limb. Every day, Cath kissed her husband goodbye, not knowing if she'd see him again as he went to work at the coalface. And while her husband toiled deep below, the mother-of-five put her cooking and cleaning skills to use in the colliery canteen. In good times and bad, the miner's wives pulled together as much as their men underground. Then Thatcher swept to power and suddenly loyalties were tested and a fight for survival of a different kind ensued. One for their very existence.
A classic recounting of a unionists' struggle against exploitation and dictatorship—from within the mines of Bolivia Let Me Speak! is a moving testimony from inside the Bolivian tin mines of the 1970s, by a woman whose life was defined by her defiant struggle against those at the very top of the power structure, the Bolivian elite. Blending firsthand accounts with astute political analysis, Domitila Barrios de Chungara describes the hardships endured by Bolivia’s colossal working class, and her own efforts at organizing women in her mining community. The result is a gripping narrative of class struggle and repression, an important social document that illuminates the reality of capitalist exploitation in the dark mines of 1970s Bolivia and beyond. Twenty-five years after it was first published in English in 1978, the new edition of this classic book includes never-before-translated testimonies gathered in the years just before the book’s translation. Let Me Speak picks up Domitila’s life story from the 1977 hunger strike she organized—a rebellion that was instrumental in bringing down the Banzer dictatorship. It then turns to her subsequent exile in Sweden and work as an internationalist seeking solidarity with the Bolivian people in the early 1980s, during the period of the García Meza dictatorship. It concludes with the formation of the Domitila Mobile School in Cochabamba, where her family had been relocated after the mine closures. As we read, we learn from Domitila’s insights into a range of topics, from U.S. imperialism to the environmental crisis, from the challenges of popular resistance in Latin America, to the kind of political organizing we need—all steeped in a conviction that we can, and must, unite social movements with working-class revolt.
Torn between love and duty... When Vinia walked down the aisle she knew it was a marriage of practicality: as the owner of the local pit, Joe could provide her with a life of status. But her heart lies with another... With gypsy blood in his veins and an intense passion in his soul, Dryden has always held a torch for Vinia. And with the death of his wife, he vows to make good on the lost years when they were apart. Will Vinia find a new chance of happiness or be forever destined to a loveless marriage? 'Original and evocative - a born storyteller' Trisha Ashley
On the verge of becoming a vampire, Manolito De La Cruz is called back to his Carpathian homeland and unexpectedly finds his destined lifemate, MaryAnne Delaney, who has no idea of the lengths that Manolito will go to to keep his mate.
A true pioneer of the West, Harriet Backus writes about her amusing and often challenging experiences with heart felt emotion and vivid detail. New foreword by Pam Houston and afterword by author's grandson Rob Walton are featured.
In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care. In this devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby traces the unforgettable story of how these trends converge in the lives of two men: Gary Fox, a black lung-stricken West Virginia coal miner determined to raise his family from poverty, and John Cline, an idealistic carpenter and rural medical clinic worker who becomes a lawyer in his fifties. Opposing them are the lawyers at the coal industry’s go-to law firm; well-credentialed doctors who often weigh in for the defense, including a group of radiologists at Johns Hopkins; and Gary’s former employer, Massey Energy, the region’s largest coal company, run by a cantankerous CEO often portrayed in the media as a dark lord of the coalfields. On the line in Gary and John’s longshot legal battle are fundamental principles of fairness and justice, with consequences for miners and their loved ones throughout the nation. Taking readers inside courtrooms, hospitals, homes tucked in Appalachian hollows, and dusty mine tunnels, Hamby exposes how coal companies have not only continually flouted a law meant to protect miners from deadly amounts of dust but also enlisted well-credentialed doctors and lawyers to help systematically deny much-needed benefits to miners. The result is a legal and medical thriller that brilliantly illuminates how a band of laborers — aided by a small group of lawyers, doctors and lay advocates, often working out of their homes or in rural clinics and tiny offices – challenged one of the world's most powerful forces, Big Coal, and won. A deeply troubling yet ultimately triumphant work, Soul Full of Coal Dust is a necessary and timely book about injustice and resistance.
