Author Kim Purcell says her new novel draws heavily on the feelings of guilt and loss she experienced after her friend’s body was found in the Fraser River in Prince George, B.C. shortly before she graduated high school.

This Is Not A Love Letter is a young adult novel focused on a high school student whose boyfriend, one of the few black people living in a B.C. mill town, disappears one night after going for a run by the river.

It is told