With this work, Julie Burtinshaw returns to her forte: fastidiously researched and gripping historical fiction. The story revolves around Jenny Estes, who is born into slavery in the 1840s in Missouri. Through Jenny and her family, Burtinshaw tells the true story of the immigration of a small group of African Americans from the banks of the Mississippi to Saltspring Island, British Columbia, in the 1860s. This first fictional treatment of a fascinating and important piece of our history follows in the tradition of Barbara Smucker’s classic Underground to Canada.