Ashes & Steam by Darryl Martel

Eleanor Woodford lives a quiet life in Ashcombe until her father, Rev. Samuel Woodford, resigns from the Church of England, unwilling to preach what he no longer believes. Shunned by their genteel community, the family relocates to Brackton, a grim, soot-covered town where mill wheels never stop turning and silence keeps the peace.

In Brackton, Eleanor begins teaching the sons of factory workers and discovers the full weight of industrial suffering. Illness, child labor, and coercion are common currency. Her path collides with Heath Ashford, the principled but rigid owner of Marlstone Mill. Their first meetings are hostile. She sees him as complicit. He sees her as naive. But when a boy from her classroom disappears, they uncover the truth: Brackton's most powerful man, Arthur Calder, is covering up worker deaths and silencing dissent.

As Eleanor and Heath navigate riots, worker uprisings, and a media scandal, they form an unlikely alliance, one that turns to love beneath the pressure of shared purpose. When Eleanor's brother is taken hostage in a desperate act of revenge, she risks everything to save him without betraying the town she now calls home.

In the aftermath of the confrontation, Eleanor inherits full ownership of the mill from her godfather and offers Heath something more radical than love.....partnership.

Ashes and Steam ends not with a wedding or a revolution, but with a desk, a decision, and a quiet commitment to build something better. Together.