Coal River Audiobook By Ellen Marie Wiseman cover art

Coal River

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Coal River

By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
Narrated by: C.S.E. Cooney
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.96

Buy for $20.96

As a child, Emma Malloy left isolated Coal River, Pennsylvania, vowing never to return. Now, orphaned and penniless at 19, she accepts a train ticket from her aunt and uncle and travels back to the rough-hewn community. Treated like a servant by her relatives, Emma works for free in the company store. There, miners and their impoverished families must pay inflated prices for food, clothing, and tools while those who owe money are turned away to starve.

Most heartrending of all are the breaker boys Emma sees around the village - young children who toil all day sorting coal amid treacherous machinery. Their soot-stained faces remind Emma of the little brother she lost long ago, and she begins leaving stolen food on families' doorsteps and marking the miners' bills as paid.

Though Emma's actions draw ire from the mine owner and police captain, they lead to an alliance with a charismatic miner who offers to help her expose the truth. As the lines blur between what is legal and what is just, Emma must risk everything to follow her conscience.

©2015 Ellen Marie Wiseman (P)2015 Tantor Historical Fiction Heartfelt Sagas Literary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Money Psychological
Captivating Storyline • Historical Authenticity • Enjoyable Voice • Strong Heroine • Unexpected Twists • Good Accents

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
Interesting storyline. I enjoy historical fiction, this didn’t disappoint. The character development was good. And a female heroine is always enjoyable.

US historical fiction

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sometimes narrators make the book. Other times, they don't. Read this as a hard copy. I liked the story just not the narrator.

Not my Favorite narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story, really enjoyed it. Glad it was suggested. Hoping the second book will come out shortly on audio book.

Great read and listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narration was stilted but I still enjoyed the story and the history of coal mining .

Loved the story. Narrator.. uhh

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not only did this narrator speak haltingly and much too quickly-over- enunciating the words, she did not do her due diligence in getting correct pronunciations of several words: Wilkes Barre, PA is not pronounced ‘Bar’ but ‘Bare’. The wagon for picking up the deceased in those times was not call ‘Black Maria’ but ‘Mer-eye-uh, with the accent on the ‘eye’. Yes, I’m nitpicking but choosing to listen to a book being read makes the story only as good as the reader (narrator) can perform it. Stuck with it because the story was so good but do wish I had chosen to just buy the book and read it myself.

Get the hard copy, avoid this narration!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews