LUCY BURDETTE: Two things I admire very much in a writer--someone who is clever enough to weave important history into fiction, and someone who can write for young adults and keep their interest. Beth Kanell does both, and I'm delighted to welcome her today to talk about the genesis of her new book...
BETH KANELL: It’s funny the things that lead into writing a mystery. For THE LONG SHADOW, the most important turned out to be a newspaper ad: an old house for sale about 20 miles from here, with an “Underground Railroad hiding place” in the basement. Add $40,000 to the asking price for that! But I had a strong suspicion, soon confirmed, that in northeastern Vermont, any hiding places in old houses probably connected to generations of hidden boozing – and that African American in Vermont in the 1800s could live freely.
That turned out to be supported by research. But people around me who had caught the Underground Railroad romantic myth refused to give it up. What a puzzle! As a mystery writer, my reaction was: I’ll paint the story in vivid detail and suspense, so you can see that the facts of what happened can be at least as exciting!
That’s how Alice Sanborn came to life in the small but thriving village of North Upton -- fifteen years old, happy, embracing her best friend Jerushah and their beloved “younger sister” friend Sarah, in 1850 in rural Vermont. I love to write this age, because you’re confident in your views then, but there is so much happening under the surface of life that you’re about to notice with newly adult eyes. Romance, of course. But for Alice, also the intense conflict of Abolition. It’s not as simple as waving a magic wand and saying “You all are free now.” And her family is knee deep, maybe hip deep, in the complications.
Three deaths take place in THE LONG SHADOW. For a “young adult” tale that’s not set in wartime, that’s actually a lot. The most personal of them will haunt Alice all her life and shape most of her choices.
But first, of course, Alice needs to investigate her situation: spying on her own father and brother, discovering resources like the former slave Miss Farrow in a nearby larger town, and testing whether the handsome but mysterious Solomon McBride can be trusted with the lives of her closest friends.
The images here are vital to the story. First is a view of maple sugaring – the boiling of maple sap into syrup, and then further boiling the syrup to make “cakes” of maple sugar. The real-life village of North Danville (model for North Upton), part of Danville, Vermont, sold thousand of cakes of maple sugar in the 1800s, as people who recognized the role of enslaved people in producing cane sugar in the Caribbean protested via their grocery shopping and kitchens, using locally made maple sugar instead.
Then there are two current photos from the village: the (still standing!) inn where Jerushah and her family live (across the road from Alice’s family farm), and the village church where Alice realizes how tough and determined her mother can be. 
Then you can see the actual horse-drawn “stage” schedule from 1848.
The cemetery stone belongs to the “real” Ruth Farrow, who had lived enslaved in Rhode Island, but free in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. 
And last is a village green marker in Coventry, Vermont, naming the four Mero brothers – “free Blacks” who enlisted to fight for the Union (the stone mentions the Battle of the Wilderness).
Those last two markers illustrate what my husband calls the Law of Unintended Consequences: I wanted to show how Abolition looked in Vermont, and ended up also finding a different view of Black Vermonters than today’s “white-bread” images of the state’s history usually portray. Alice’s teen-turning-adult adventures and narrow escapes depend on her own discovery of who’s taking action, and how much she is willing to risk to do her part.
THE LONG SHADOW comes out in hardcover and ebook on April 18, from Five Star/Cengage. Let me know what you think, as you discover the people and reasons behind the crimes involved. Like Alice, your view matters!
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BIO: Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. She writes reviews mysteries, poems, hikes the back roads and mountains, and digs into Vermont history to frame her “history-hinged” adventure mysteries. Look for her earlier books The Darkness Under the Water, The Secret Room, and Cold Midnight. She shares her research and writing process at BethKanell.blogspot.com; her mystery reviews are at KingdomBks.blogspot.com. She’s a member of both Sisters in Crime and the National Book Critics Circle, and can’t resist reading more mysteries!
Here is the Amazon link for the book (if you “do” Amazon – I won’t be offended if you don’t!)
