Overburden by K.S. Valentina

Ivy Sturgill returns to Bellweather County to survey an abandoned coal mine before the state seals it permanently. The work is straightforward until her measurements stop matching the approved plans—and something white and wounded begins following her through the drainage below No. 6.

The county has its own rules for the mine. Clocks stop at 7:31. Food appears outside the locked gate. Neighbors warn Ivy to leave old markers where she finds them. Four beings move through the abandoned works, each connected to the disaster the official record reduced to a date and a death count.

As Ivy earns their trust, professional distance becomes impossible. Early accepts her care. Tally lets her cross a line he has guarded for sixty years. Amos and the Whistler offer their own forms of protection. None of them asks her to choose among them.

Then the company behind the reclamation moves up the concrete pour. Ivy finds plans that do not match the ground, a torn operations record, and payments tied to the families of seventeen dead miners. The official account says the men died instantly. The surviving records show that signals continued underground for nine days.

Stopping the seal will mean putting Ivy's license, career, and safety behind evidence powerful people have spent sixty years containing. It will also mean trusting four beings the rest of the county refuses to name.

Overburden is Book One of The Reclamation, a Gothic Appalachian why-choose romance with a continuing mystery.