Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Historical Fiction

The Titanic is meant to be unsinkable, but as it begins its maiden voyage, there’s plenty of danger waiting for four of its young passengers. Paddy is a stowaway, escaping a deadly past. Sophie’s mother is delivered to the ship by police - after she and Sophie have been arrested. Juliana’s father is an eccentric whose riches can barely hide his madness. And Alfie is hiding a secret that could get him kicked off the ship immediately.

Will Everett has always wished for an adventure. Little does he know his adventure starts the moment he boards the Boundless. There is a murder, and now Will protects a key that can unlock the train¹s hidden treasures. Villains are fast on his heels and strange creatures are lurking outside the windows, as the Boundless hurtles across the country. Together with Maren, a gifted escape artist, and Mr. Dorian, a circus ringmaster with amazing abilities, Will must save the Boundless before someone else winds up dead.

It’s 1880, and in the frigid city of Stockholm, death lurks around every corner. Twelve-year-old Mika knows that everyone in her orphanage will struggle to survive this winter. But at least the notorious serial killer the Night Raven is finally off the streets…or is he? Mika is shocked when a newborn baby is left at the orphanage in the middle of the night, by a boy with a cryptic message. Who is he? And who is this “Dark Angel” he speaks of? When a detective shows up, Mika senses something even more sinister is going on.

Rifka knows nothing about America when she flees from Russia with her family in 1919. But she dreams that in the new country she will at last be safe from the Russian soldiers and their harsh treatment of the Jews. Throughout her journey, Rifka carries with her a cherished volume of poetry by Alexander Pushkin. In it, she records her observations and experiences in the form of letters to Tovah, the beloved cousin she has left behind.

In 1939, the Germans invaded the town of Lodz, Poland, and moved the Jewish population into a small part of the city called a ghetto. As the war progressed, 270,000 people were forced to settle in the ghetto under impossible conditions. At the end of the war, there were about 800 survivors. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. This is the story of one of the twelve.

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Strawberries - big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy.

There’s a killer on the loose on the Titanic  -  and the only people who know are four kids. Within both the luxury of the cabins and the dark underbelly of the engine rooms, Paddy, Sophie, Juliana, and Alfie have found themselves tangled in a maze of mysteries, each one deadlier than the next.

Disaster has struck, and the Titanic is going down. What started as a thrilling voyage has turned into a fight for survival. For Paddy, Sophie, Juliana, and Alfie, every second counts in the race against death. All of their hiding and all of their seeking has come down to this: Can they save the people they love? Can they even save themselves? One cold, horrifying night will decide all of their fates.

After a merciless winter, spring has sprung in 1880 Stockholm, and the city awaits the arrival of the SS Vega, the first ship to have sailed the Northeast Passage. Life is busy at the orphanage, but twelve-year-old Mika quickly notices that the older orphans are up to something—and it doesn’t look good. When Constable Hoff approaches her with information about thefts around the city, Mika becomes even more concerned about what the other kids are up to—and what they might be planning for the Vega celebration.

Kyle's great-grandfather once possessed a silver lance that, according to legend, gave its owner invincible power. The lance is now missing, and Kyle is always looking for it, but so are his worst enemies: the robber Rasputin and the evil magician Balduin. Luckily, Kyle has the help of his friends, including Lady Constance (who is as brave as a dragon), Dragobert (who really is a dragon), Elf Aurin (whose harp playing, unfortunately, puts Kyle to sleep), and Prince Nepomuk (who protects his friends and his wardrobe).

Tugs Esther Button was born to a luckless family. Buttons don’t presume to be singers or dancers. They aren’t athletes or artists, good listeners or model citizens. Until tomboy Tugs befriends the popular Aggie Millhouse, wins a brand-new Brownie camera in the Independence Day raffle, and stumbles into a mystery only she can solve, she looks at her hapless family and sees her own reflection looking back. But it’s a summer of change, and it just may be that in the end, being a Button is precisely what one clumsy, funny, spirited, and observant young heroine decides to make of it.

I throw back my tumble of black hair, roll one bare shoulder forward, then the other. The stack of bangles on each wrist shimmies and slides as my hands rise like birds in flight..Set during the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, sixteen-year-old Drina yearns to dance Flamenco. When she dances, she forgets who she is. She forgets what seems to be her legacy: I am nothing. I belong nowhere. Why does her mother forbid her to dance, the very thing that makes her feel alive?

A six-year-old boy goes to spend the summer with his grandmother, Alida, in a small Minnesota town. With the men all gone off to fight, the women are left to run the farms. There’s plenty for the boy to do - trying to help with the chores; getting to know the dog and the horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. But when his cousin Kristina goes into labor, he can’t do a thing. Instead, the house fills with women come to help and to wait, and to work on the quilt together

Meg Pickel’s older brother, Orion, has disappeared. One night, Meg steals out to look for him and makes two surprising discoveries: She stumbles upon a séance that she suspects involves Orion, and she meets the author Charles Dickens, also unable to sleep and roaming the London streets.

>In the winter life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are 12, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl’s dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs....

The Lleshis are Albanians living in Kosovo, a country trying to fight off Serbian oppressors, and suddenly they are homeless refugees. Old and young alike, they find their courage tested by hunger, illness, the long, arduous journey, with danger on every side. Then, unexpectedly, they are brought to America by a church group and begin a new life in a small Vermont town. The events of 9/11 bring more challenges for this Muslim family - but this country is their home now and there can be no turning back.

For Sugar, life is anything but sweet.

Ten-year-old Sugar lives on River Road Plantation along the banks of the Mississippi River. Slavery is over, but working in the sugarcane fields all day doesn’t make her feel very free. Thankfully, Sugar knows how to make her own fun, telling stories, climbing trees, and playing with forbidden friend Billy, the plantation owner’s son. Then a group of Chinese workers arrives to help harvest the cane. Sugar wants to know everything about them - she loves the way they dress, their unfamiliar language, and, best of all, the stories they tell of dragons and emperors.

Muscle Man McGinty can certainly tell some whoppers, but this time he's done the unthinkable. He bragged he can beat the entire block in a game of kickball! On Ramble Street, tough talk about kickball cannot be ignored. For Tamara Ann Simpson, however, this is great news. Now she'll finally be able to prove to everyone what a wormy little runt Muscle Man really is. Of course things would be a lot easier if her best friend Kebsie Grobser were here to help her.

In August 1972, President Idi Amin declares that a message from God has come to him in a dream: all foreign Indians must be "weeded out" of Uganda in the next 90 days. Fifteen-year-old Sabine and her father, a successful businessman, are confident that their family will not be affected, since they are Ugandan citizens, but Sabine's fearful mother is certain that they will have to leave.

After months away at boarding school, Lulu Davenport was looking forward to summer vacation at her home on the southwest Florida coast, especially since her best friend, Algie Emsworth, will be spending his vacation with the Davenport family. But since his widowed mother has fallen on hard times, he’s gotten a job nearby that keeps him away from the house most of the day. And Frankie, Lulu’s sister and usual companion, is out of commission after injuring herself while sailing.