In London, 1593, sixteen year old Will Hughes makes his living on Shakespeare’s stage, but after the famous playwright Christopher Marlowe is murdered, he teams up with young Lord James Bloomsbury, and together the two hunt the elusive assassin as their forbidden feelings for each other ignite.
Young Adult (ages 14-18)
Material appropriate for young adults
Tiger Daughter
Equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful, Tiger Daughter is an award-winning novel about finding your voice amidst the pressures of growing up in an immigrant home told from the perspective of a remarkable young Chinese girl.Wen Zhou is a first generation daughter of Chinese migrant parents. She has high expectations from her parents to succeed in school, especially her father whose strict rules leave her feeling trapped. She dreams of creating a future for herself more satisfying than the one her parents expect her to lead. Then she befriends a boy named Henry who is also a first generation immigrant. He is the smartest boy at school despite struggling with his English and understands her in a way nobody has lately. Both of them dream of escaping and together they come up with a plan to take an entrance exam for a selective school far from home. But when tragedy strikes, it will take all of Wen’s resilience and tiger strength to get herself and Henry through the storm that follows.
Her Radiant Curse
Two sisters, one as beautiful as the moon and the other monstrous, must fight to save each other when a betrothal contest goes wrong.
Under This Forgetful Sky
Sixteen year old Rumi Sabzwari has spent his entire life behind the armored walls of St. Iago, which protect citizens of the Union of Upper Cities from the outside world’s environmental devastation. But when rebels infect his father with a fatal virus, Rumi escapes St. Iago, desperate to find a cure. In the ruined city of Paraíso, Rumi meets fifteen year old Paz, who agrees to guide him on his journey. As they travel together, Rumi finds himself drawn to Paz and behind her tough exterior, she begins to feel the same way. But Paz knows more about Rumi’s father’s illness than she’s saying and has her own agenda. With the powerful forces at play in their cities putting them at odds, can the two learn to trust in each other enough to imagine a different world?
Impossible Escape: A True Story Of Survival And Heroism In Nazi Europe
It is 1944. A teenager named Rudolf (Rudi) Vrba has made up his mind. After barely surviving nearly two years in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he knows he must escape. Even if death is more likely. Rudi has learned the terrible secret hidden behind the heavily guarded fences of concentration camps across Nazi occupied Europe: the methodical mass killing of Jewish prisoners. As trains full of people arrive daily, Rudi knows that the murders won’t stop until he reveals the truth to the world and that each day that passes means more lives are lost. Lives like Rudi’s schoolmate Gerta Sidonová. Gerta’s family fled from Slovakia to Hungary, where they live under assumed names to hide their Jewish identity. But Hungary is beginning to cave under pressure from German Nazis. Her chances of survival become slimmer by the day. The clock is ticking. As Gerta inches closer to capture, Rudi and his friend Alfred Wetzler begin their crucial steps towards an impossible escape. This is the true story of one of the most famous whistleblowers in the world, and how his death-defying escape helped save over 100,000 lives.
Sinner’s Isle (Joy Revolution)
A spellbinding romantic fantasy about a powerful witch who will do anything to escape the remote island she’s being held captive on, including blackmail a notorious, charming pirate who washes up on shore, from debut author Angela Montoya. Rosalinda is trapped on Sinner’s Isle, an island filled with young women like her—Majestics, beautiful witches loathed by society for their dangerous magic yet revered by powerful men who want to use them. For years, she has been kept under the watchful, calculating eye of Doña Lucia. Now eighteen, Rosa will be the prized commodity at this year’s Offering, a fiesta for the wealthy to engage in drink, damsels, and debauchery. That is why she must flee—before someone forces the vicious phantoms within her to destroy everything she touches.
Handsome, swashbuckling Mariano has long sailed the high seas as the Prince of Pirates. Then the king’s fleet attacks his father’s infamous ship, leaving him marooned on Sinner’s Isle with only an enchanted chain meant to lead him to his heart’s desire. Instead, he falls into the hands of a brazen (although) bewitching headache—Rosa. Together they must outwit each other and their enemies before the Offering ends and it’s too late to escape the perils of Sinner’s Isle.
Foul Heart Huntman
In 1932 Shanghai, exposed national spy Rosalind Lang must rescue fellow spy, Orion, whose memories of Rosalind were wiped, and find a cure to a dangerous chemical weapon before it lands in the hand of foreign invaders.
In The Tunnel
Fourteen year old Myung-gi flees North Korea with his family during the height of the devastating Korean War, beginning an epic struggle for survival that pushes them to the brink.
Featured in October 2023’s WOW Dozen on Books by Contemporary Korean American Authors.
A Snake Falls To Earth
Fifteen-year-olds Nina and Oli come from different words–she is a Lipan Apache living in Texas and he is a cottonmouth from the Reflecting World–but their lives intersect when Oli journeys to Earth to find a cure for his ailing friend and they end up helping each other save their families.
Apple: (Skin To The Core)
Eric Gansworth tells his story, the story of his family of Onondaga among Tuscaroras of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.