Dangerously close to a romance novel at times, Tawni O'Dell's
Coal Run was still enjoyable enough for me not to hate myself for having read it. (Okay, it was a book club pick and I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise.) The female author did a credible job creating her male characters, but surprisingly her female characters are fairly cardboard-esque. They were stereotyped tools for the main character to use or be manipulated by through the course of the novel. The story itself was enjoyable and I liked the local-color details of the small Pennsylvanian coal mining town, but all in all this is disposable stuff.
