cover image Downriver

Downriver

Jennifer M. Lane. Pen and Key, $16.99 trade paper (344p) ISBN 978-1-7366691-2-9

An orphaned teen takes on powerful men in this rousing series launch from Lane (the Ramsbolt series). Charlotte Morris and her younger brother, Emmett, hail from the coal mining town of Stoke, Pa., where her miner father agitated for better working conditions. After both of their parents die from illnesses related to pollution from the coal mine in 1900, Charlotte and Emmett go to live with foster parents in North East, Md. The Ryans, alcoholic Finn and stern Regina, offer the siblings a cold welcome and put them to work with fishing and other chores. When Charlotte sees the town’s mayor on a train platform meeting with the owner of Stoke’s mine, she suspects the mayor of corruption and starts connecting the dots between the pollution in Stoke and the massive fish die-off in North East. Gathering allies, including a group of suffragists, Charlotte concocts a plan to continue her late father’s labor activism and expose the truth behind the environmental devastation. Her crusade is complicated by increasing tension with Emmett, who chafes against Charlotte’s protectiveness, and Charlotte struggles with whom to trust. The pacing and character work are a bit rough, but Lane succeeds at making Charlotte a heroine to root for. Those who appreciate muckraking social realism in the vein of Mary Doria Russell’s Women of Copper Country ought to check this out. (Self-published)