Topper Sherwood
Paperback, 312 pages
May 2015
Appalachian Editions

Signed by the author!

The story of Carla Rising follows the injustice and violence endured by a real community of coal miners in the 1920s. This rugged band stands up to callous industrialists and corrupt law-enforcement officials to win decent working conditions, fair pay and greater regard for human life.

Having escaped her overbearing mother's mountain life, Carla Rising finds herself caught between two rival leaders in a workers' rebellion against the brutal regime of a corrupt county sheriff and the Sovereign Coal Company. The conniving Sheriff Riley Gore uses his strike-breaking police to enforce authoritarian rule across a mountainous landscape of small mining communities. When thousands of workers decide to strike, the atrocities escalate, compelling Carla to become more deeply involved. Her decision to join 10,000 angry coal miners on an armed march against the sheriff is as much a personal choice as a political one, favoring one man and his ideas over the other.

Carla Rising walks a rugged path for justice as she and her friends defend their mountain settlement, quickly becoming targets of Sheriff Gore and his company police. The conflict ultimately draws the involvement of the US Army, whose leaders threaten to use their newest bombing planes to put a quick end to the energy war if Carla and the miners don't back down.