A Captive State
by
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Samantha Atherton Armstrong was a mystery to those who worked for her, along with anyone else she came into contact with. It hadn’t come naturally; but was the result of an elaborate cover cultivated since early childhood.
While Vermont is a place where mysteries have their place in legends and heroes of old, her people do not want them in daily life. Vermonters need to connect everyone they meet to something they are familiar with. To assist with this, all acquaintances are assigned to one of three categories: Real Vermonters (so at the very least related to someone known), Tourists (from some far away place that can be pointed to on a map, while they are told "Don’t let us keep you from getting back there as quickly as possible") or Flatlanders (tourists who make the mistake of moving in). A Vermonter will sadly proclaim that he is not a Real Vermonter, since his mother’s father’s mother’s father was actually born in New Hampshire. On the other hand, a Flatlander will proudly announce in a letter to the editor of the local paper that he is practically a Real Vermonter, since he has lived in his adopted state for almost a decade. Obviously the two don’t mix.
When Samantha moved to Burlington in the early eighties to jump on the captive insurance bandwagon, she was greeted with the quiet disgust that most Flatlanders are too ignorant to respect. Some of her foolish associates actually looked on the term as one of endearment, instead of the mark of a pariah that it was intended to be. She understood that while anyone could physically move to this land of enchantment, only a Real Vermonter could share the depths of his soul with the Green Mountains.
The Flatlander label was a double-edged sword for Samantha, because she actually was a Real Vermonter.
It served her purpose to allow everyone to assume that she had grown up in Hartford, Connecticut where she had worked for three years in one of the Big Six Accounting Firms after finishing college. Sometimes it is not so much what is reported about a person, as what is not revealed that tells the story of someone’s life.
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About the Book
Having survived growing up in the rural Northeast Kingdom of Vermont with her Grandparents, after her father deserted the family and her mother committed suicide, Samantha Atherton Armstrong had left the state for college with the idea never to return. Her accounting job in Hartford, CT, however, leads to work in Burlington and she moves back to Vermont. Soon she is a highly successful, workaholic president of her own Captive Insurance Management Firm.
Much of her time is spent denying her past-she has bought into the theory that if you ignore it, it will go away. She hires a private detective to track down her father-not for the hope of a reunion, but instead to ensure that he won’t show up at some inopportune future point in her life and shatter the illusion she has created for the world.
In the middle of trying to forge a romantic relationship with a much older lawyer, Kenny Tucker, Samantha is forced to go back to the Northeast Kingdom to face her past. But Kenny is hiding secrets of his own. Ones that if exposed, could destroy them both.
In the end, Samantha must decide if the quest for truth about her mother’s suicide is worth losing everything, including Kenny.
More twists and turns than a Vermont backwoods dirt road, you won’t be able to leave A Captive State--
About the Author
Patricia Letourneau Henderson grew up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, before heading off to Keuka College in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. After graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration-Management, she moved to Boston for a three and half year stint as an Accountant with Liberty Mutual Insurance. Returning to Vermont as a Captive Insurance Company Manager, she has spent fifteen years in the business. Currently she is Director – Corporate Services and Vermont Operations for Strategic Risk Solutions in Burlington.
Ms. Henderson, her husband and two children divide their time between homes in North Concord and Essex, VT. She welcomes your questions and comments at captivebooks@aol.com.