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The Long Shadow
When Alice Sanborn and best friend Jerushah cross paths with a bounty hunter in rural northern Vermont, the teens stage a daring rescue for former slave Sarah Johnson -- but winter weather, politics, and challenges of mountain life bring more danger. It's March 1850 in small-town Vermont, and tempers flare over the "right kind" of Abolition. When the two fifteen-year-olds suspect Alice's older brother William is taking dangerous risks to shelter a fugitive hiding at the inn, they see Sarah's safety at risk. With help from the skillful but mysterious Solomon McBride, the girls head toward the wilder countryside along the Canadian border. Perils abound, including back at home. Is it all Alice's fault? What should she do? Even a teen can take strong action - but which way is right, and how can she choose?
300 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 15, 2018
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Beth Kanell
10 books41 followersABOUT ME
Storytelling is Beth Kanell's native language - and she learned it from her mother, who taught her to fill in the blanks as a story emerged. As a single parent in Vermont, for years she told stories "on the side" and developed a specialty in tales for teens (always starting with something scary!). Endlessly in love with Vermont, she began bringing the most fascinating parts of its history into her narratives, and discovered that what she really likes after all is writing fiction that explores the lives of young people caught up in the force of change. She is also a non-stop mystery reader, so she grapples for new and unusual plot twists, as well as the magic of the Green Mountain state.
ABOUT MY WORK
Beth Kanell's first Vermont historical novel THE DARKNESS UNDER THE WATER began as a form of ghost story and got scarier. Along with years of historical prowling for the book, Beth relied on family narratives from the residents of small Vermont towns like Waterford, St. Johnsbury, West Barnet, Barnet, Peacham, and Danville. She loved re-discovering the days of log drives on the Connecticut River. Recently she's been digging into how people washed dishes in 1850, why there are so many fires in small towns, and Vermont's unsolved murders. She writes as if she were braiding: one strand for the flow of history, one for the controversies involved, and the biggest strand, of course, for the characters who take over her inner life. She outlines on brown paper pinned to the walls of her small writing room, and depends on chocolate, candles, and music to get her through.
THREE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME:
Storytelling is Beth Kanell's native language - and she learned it from her mother, who taught her to fill in the blanks as a story emerged. As a single parent in Vermont, for years she told stories "on the side" and developed a specialty in tales for teens (always starting with something scary!). Endlessly in love with Vermont, she began bringing the most fascinating parts of its history into her narratives, and discovered that what she really likes after all is writing fiction that explores the lives of young people caught up in the force of change. She is also a non-stop mystery reader, so she grapples for new and unusual plot twists, as well as the magic of the Green Mountain state.
ABOUT MY WORK
Beth Kanell's first Vermont historical novel THE DARKNESS UNDER THE WATER began as a form of ghost story and got scarier. Along with years of historical prowling for the book, Beth relied on family narratives from the residents of small Vermont towns like Waterford, St. Johnsbury, West Barnet, Barnet, Peacham, and Danville. She loved re-discovering the days of log drives on the Connecticut River. Recently she's been digging into how people washed dishes in 1850, why there are so many fires in small towns, and Vermont's unsolved murders. She writes as if she were braiding: one strand for the flow of history, one for the controversies involved, and the biggest strand, of course, for the characters who take over her inner life. She outlines on brown paper pinned to the walls of her small writing room, and depends on chocolate, candles, and music to get her through.
THREE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME:
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2018
In “The Long Shadow” Alice Sanborn is coming of age in Vermont during the neglected historical period before America’s greatest crisis. Her world displays the enterprise and values of old New England in an environment every bit as harsh as it is beautiful.
Alice has heard village talk about men paid to recover runaway slaves even in northern Vermont. This concerns Alice because her friend Sarah is an escaped slave. A crisis arises when slave catcher Henry Clinton comes to North Upton. Alice’s struggle to protect Sarah starts a life-changing adventure.
This YA book, remarkable in its details of time and place, will go on my bookshelf with a select group of novels that vividly capture New England history. For me these include “Not Without Peril” by Marguerite Allis , “In The Fall” by Jeffrey Lent , “Look To The Mountain” by LeGrand Cannon, and the early novels of Howard Frank Mosher.
Alice has heard village talk about men paid to recover runaway slaves even in northern Vermont. This concerns Alice because her friend Sarah is an escaped slave. A crisis arises when slave catcher Henry Clinton comes to North Upton. Alice’s struggle to protect Sarah starts a life-changing adventure.
This YA book, remarkable in its details of time and place, will go on my bookshelf with a select group of novels that vividly capture New England history. For me these include “Not Without Peril” by Marguerite Allis , “In The Fall” by Jeffrey Lent , “Look To The Mountain” by LeGrand Cannon, and the early novels of Howard Frank Mosher.
November 26, 2025
I first met Beth Kanell on Medium.com, where we both write. I was impressed and am a follower of her writing there. After some time, I learned she was a published author and decided to purchase a copy of one of her books. I’m hooked. I bet that’s a nice thing for any author to hear.
The Long Shadow is the story of a family settled in Vermont during the years just before the Civil War. There was no on-and-off switch in the years leading up to the war, which were fraught with violence, fear, dissent, and courage.
This is the story of a young woman who had family members involved in the struggle to bring enslaved people from the Southern states to freedom in the North. And freedom in those times was a safer place in Canada. I learned a lot from reading this story and was again impressed that we do not live life in absolutes, though many people try.
Even though I knew what was going to happen eventually, I lived with the fear and the courage people displayed. I lived with the resolute belief that the people had in this story that all people are meant to be free and to live their lives outside of the institution of slavery.
I also know that the times we live in now are still fraught with the aftereffects of such dissent. It is vital that we talk about those times. We all had family members alive in the early 1800s, whether they lived in the United States or abroad. That war tore us all apart. I admire people who try to heal that, as Beth Kanell is doing now.
I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
The Long Shadow is the story of a family settled in Vermont during the years just before the Civil War. There was no on-and-off switch in the years leading up to the war, which were fraught with violence, fear, dissent, and courage.
This is the story of a young woman who had family members involved in the struggle to bring enslaved people from the Southern states to freedom in the North. And freedom in those times was a safer place in Canada. I learned a lot from reading this story and was again impressed that we do not live life in absolutes, though many people try.
Even though I knew what was going to happen eventually, I lived with the fear and the courage people displayed. I lived with the resolute belief that the people had in this story that all people are meant to be free and to live their lives outside of the institution of slavery.
I also know that the times we live in now are still fraught with the aftereffects of such dissent. It is vital that we talk about those times. We all had family members alive in the early 1800s, whether they lived in the United States or abroad. That war tore us all apart. I admire people who try to heal that, as Beth Kanell is doing now.
I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
November 8, 2019
An intimate study, beautifully crafted, of the slow current of history, of liberation and freedom, running through the byways of our half-formed nation prior to the civil war. Through the eyes of a courageous, but gentle teenage girl we see life as lived on a farm in rural Vermont--and much of our nation--beginning as winter turns into spring. The snow is petering out, but the treacherous mud season, and the birthing of lambs become part of the back ground, like the cold air and warm fires of this era, where we discover also the secret tracts of the Underground Railroad. Our quiet heroine becomes a part of this network, as does the young freed negro girl, Sarah, safe living with these kind farmers, but without family or friends, dreaming of the day she will be reunited with her family, someday, as free citizens. This is an intimate book, a loving recreation of place and time, of courage, danger and promise, of what this country may still become; a home of the free, and here in halcyon seeming Vermont, a century and a half ago, the home of the brave.
January 30, 2019
The amount of detail in this historical novel was amazing...and yet it didn't bog the story down. I really liked the honesty of the main character and the interesting secondary characters. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but can say that there was adventure, a little romance, social justice issues and much more packed into this novel. And I learned some new things about history just by reading it. Well done and looking forward to the next in this series.
February 23, 2022
Pre-Civil-War Vermont is not where I would have considered a story about the abolition of slavery.
So this story opened up an interesting new look at how people of that time and place felt about the
issue.
So this story opened up an interesting new look at how people of that time and place felt about the
issue.
Read
March 12, 2021Lots of food, customs and Vermont traditions within these pages.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews