Lee Seymour is
twenty-seven and feels like she's finally grown up. She has a
job at Safe Haven, a Cambridge rehabilitation center for addicts, and
she lives with her grandmother, Clara, in the old Harden House.
Harden House was a stop on the underground railroad for runaway
slaves in the 1850's. Today Clara with the help of Lee and her cousin
Bonnie, is preparing the house for inclusion in the Harriet
Tubman Network to Freedom National Park. Besides Lee and Bonnie,
Clara is helped in this endeavor by Trina Collins, a recovering
addict from Safe Haven, and Michael Ennen, a dropout from the Harvard
architecture school.
The history of the
house is told in the diary of Sarah Harden, a teen-ager in the 1850s.
Her father,an abolitionist, welcomed runaway slaves to their
home. Because the authorities were becoming more watchful, her father
built a safe room, a place to hide the slaves that wasn't apparent
from a tour of the inside of the house.
In addition to the
history of the underground railroad, the house has a ghost that Lee
can feel. There is romance between Michael and Lee and between
Sara and a runaway slave, Silas Person. Tragedy stalks the house in
both the 1850's and the present. Silas was murdered and his body
buried in an unfinished tunnel in the cellar. Clara is also dies and
the question of murder arises.
The book is told as
two separate, intertwined stories. The modern portion is narrated by
Lee; the historical portion,by Sarah's diary. I found the historical
portion very well done and accurate. I felt it was better than the
modern section. Lee is not an attractive character. She has a prickly
personality and believes she's a liberal when in fact she harbors
prejudices that she doesn't understand.
The story moves
quickly. The only problem is in moving back and forth between the
centuries. I found the writing good. It was an easy book to read. If
you enjoy historical novels with a tinge of romance and murder,
you'll enjoy this book.
I reviewed this book
for Net Galley.
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