Coal Dust — Shirley Noe Swiesz

Intrigue, murder and quiet whispers have haunted the coal mining town of Sweet Spot, Kentucky for years, but not even the law wants to dig deeper to find the perpetrator. Haley Alston, a young woman coal miner stands in the center of lies and deceit. The Prescott family owns the prosperous coal mines and all it entails. A strike is in the making as the youngest Prescott son, Kyle, is killed, leaving the young woman coal miner wealthy beyond imagination. But she is not out for money but for the love of Marcus Prescott, Kyle Prescotts half brother, who has been deeply hurt by his first wife and has no trust for women. Haley, who lives with her grandfather, is the epitome of an abused child, but no one saw fit to see her through her pain and now she is an adult in trouble. Characters of the mountains flit about in Coal Dust, bringing laughter and tears in this romantic story of the hill folk. In the midst of the confusion wrought by Birdie, Haleys dead mother, old wounds surface as steadily and surely as the coal from the mountains. It brings a climax that will hold the reader transfixed until the end.