STEAL AWAY HOME

Steal Away Home, a stunning biography of a 15-year-old slave who finds freedom in Canada while her Kentucky owners vacation in Niagara Falls, stands in the company of The Book of Negroes, Bound for Canaan, House Girl and The Illegal.

Cecelia Jane Reynolds lived in a time when people could be property, when children could be torn from their parents and bought by the highest bidder, and the progeny of a white master and his black housekeeper could become a slave to his own white family.

This captivating work of narrative non-fiction traces Cecelia's life from her dangerous journey to freedom from the United States, across the Niagara River and into Canada. Escape came with a price: she would never see her mother or brother again, and she would be separated from the young mistress, with whom she grew up, but who also owned her.

Cecelia eventually landed in Toronto, finding solace in the African American expatriate community. Her rescuer and husband, a brave guide on the Underground Railroad, helped freedom-seeking slaves reach Canada. Tragically widowed, she risked Fugitive Slave Law and returned to the United States where she followed her new love William into the Civil War. With a wounded husband and young children in tow, she returned to Kentucky. But her home had changed: eager Night Riders with torches and nooses claimed the countryside she had known as a child. With the disappearance of her husband, Cecelia came to rely on support from Fanny Thruston Ballard – the very same mistress who had owned her a child.

After years apart, Cecelia and her former mistress lived within a few blocks of each other for the rest of Fanny's life. Only five letters between these two women have survived. They are a testament to a friendship that lasted across boundaries, both real and imagined.

KAROLYN SMARDZ FROST, Toronto-born archaeologist and historian, is the Senior Research Fellow for York University's Harriet Tubman Institute and former Bicentennial Visiting Professor for Canadian Studies at Yale. Her previous works include Ontario's African-Canadian Heritage, The Underground Railroad, and I've Got a Home in Glory Land, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. She currently resides in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Within two weeks of publication Steal Away Home was optioned by Conquering Lion Pictures, the company that produced the multiple award-winning TV mini-series based on the novel of the same title, Book of Negroes.