JB exhumed skeleton beings studied at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
Forensic science and folklore can piece together some truths about life (and the afterlife) in New England in the 1700s and 1800s. Like Mercy Brown in Mercy: The Last New England Vampire, JB was a real person, a Connecticut farmer who died of tuberculosis….and whose community dug up his grave after his death, convinced he was a vampire. The Washington Post details new discoveries about him here…one of the few so-called vampire burials to be exhumed and studied.
You don’t have to travel to Transylvania to encounter homegrown vampire folklore. The same legends that led to JB’s exhumation were the basis for my YA novel Mercy. Family, loss, terror, and love–the elements of a good horror story or a supernatural legend.
Sarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Readers will treasure the blossoming friendship between opposites in this whimsically illustrated tale. Short chapters and plenty of action make for an accessible and appealing reading experience. . . . Touching and inspiring.”
—Kirkus Reviews