Book picks similar to
School Under Snowdon by Mabel Esther Allan
school-stories
childrens-fiction
uk
orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids
Gum Moon: A Novel of San Francisco Chinatown
Jeffrey L Staley - 2018
A sympathetic prostitute befriends Chun, but two years later, at the height of a plague quarantine, Chun is thrust into a bewildering new world. A young Methodist woman rescues her and places her in a Home for abused and trafficked girls. The Home is destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, but Chun (aka "Maud") survives. In an attempt to raise funds to rebuild the Home, Maud and a group of seven other Chinese children embark on a six-month cross-country singing tour. Performing for President Theodore Roosevelt in the White House is the highlight of the journey, but when the matron of the Home suffers a breakdown, thirteen year-old Maud must find within herself the strength and resolve to lead the band of children home. The novel is based on events in the life of the author's wife's grandmother.
Hour of the Assassins: A Novel
Andrew Kaplan - 1987
His atrocities were unspeakable, and among his victims were the wife and child of a man named Wasserman, who was forced to watch them die. Mengele survived the war, disappearing into hiding in South America, and Wasserman ran too—fleeing to America to make a fortune in pornography. Now he is dying of cancer, but before he goes, he wants to see Mengele dead. To hunt the evil doctor, he recruits John Caine, an ex-CIA agent whose time in Vietnam gave him his own close-up view of evil. Seeking the Angel of Death in the jungles of South America, Caine discovers a sinister conspiracy code-named Starfish and realizes that Mengele is only the beginning.
Journey to the River Sea
Eva Ibbotson - 2001
She believes she is in for brightly colored macaws, enormous butterflies, and "curtains of sweetly scented orchids trailing from the trees." Her British classmates warn her of man-eating alligators and wild, murderous Indians. Unfortunately, no one cautions Maia about her nasty, xenophobic cousins, who douse the house in bug spray and forbid her from venturing beyond their coiffed compound. Maia, however, is resourceful enough to find herself smack in the middle of more excitement than she ever imagined, from a mysterious "Indian" with an inheritance, to an itinerant actor dreading his impending adolescence, to a remarkable journey down the Amazon in search of the legendary giant sloth.
Beyond a Misty Shore
Lyn Andrews - 2011
For sisters Sophie and Maria, though, the upheaval is just beginning. For they have no choice but to leave their beloved home on the Isle of Man. It is a huge wrench for eighteen-year-old Maria, who can't forget Hans Bonhoeffer, a young Austrian, interned on the island during the war. For widowed Sophie, Liverpool offers a new beginning with her daughter Bella. She has no room for distractions - until she falls in love with Frank Ryan, a man married to a woman who, although she doesn't love him, has no intention of letting him go. Without the men they love, will the sisters ever find happiness?
A Girl Called Justice
Elly Griffiths - 2019
For a fearless girl called Justice Jones, super-smart super-sleuth, it's just the start of a spine-tingling first term at
Highbury House Boarding School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk.
For fans of Robin Stevens, Katherine Woodfine and Enid Blyton.
When Justice's mother dies, her father packs her off to Highbury House Boarding School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. He's a barrister - specialising in murder trials - and he's just too busy to look after her alone. Having previously been home-schooled, the transition is a shock. Can it really be the case that blondes rule the corridors? Are all uniforms such a charming shade of brown? And do schools normally hide dangerous secrets about the murder of a chamber maid? Justice takes it upon herself to uncover the truth. (Mainly about the murder, but perhaps she can figure out her new nemesis - the angelic Rose - at the same time.) But when a storm cuts the school off from the real world, the body count starts to rise and Justice realises she'll need help from her new friends if she's going to find the killer before it's too late ...
The Forest, Part 1 of 2
Edward Rutherfurd - 2000
. . A sprawling tome that combines fact with fiction and covers 900 years in the history of New Forest, a 100,000-acre woodland in southern England . . . Rutherfurd sketches the histories of six fictional families, ranging from aristocrats to peasants, who have lived in the forest for generations. . . . But the real success is in how Rutherfurd paints his picture of the wooded enclave with images of treachery and violence, as well as magic and beauty.”–The New York Post
The Pornographer Diaries
Danny King - 2004
He talks to the models, he reads hundreds of filthy readers' letters, he organises the photoshoots and even gets to direct the action. He has, according to his non-porn friends, "the best job in the world". But Godfrey Bishop has a problem. Godfrey Bishop is going through the sex drought to end all sex droughts. He hasn't been with a woman in over a year and this knee-twisting frustration is magnified a hundred times by his daily grind. He feels like Billy Bunter put in charge of the cake shop, only to have the Atkins diet forced upon him at gun point. Chuck into the mix a twelve girl orgy, a stable of alcoholic co-workers, an angry argumentative feminist, a naked run from justice and an obsessive nutty reader who thinks Godfrey is trying to scupper his chances of marrying the magazine's centre-spread girl and you have Danny King's filthiest and funniest novel yet – according to the back of the book. Godfrey Bishop has "the best job in the world" – and it's doing his f*cking head in.
Autumn Term
Antonia Forest - 1948
Twins Nicola and Lawrie arrive at their new school determined to do even better than their distinguished elder sisters, but things don't turn out quite as planned.
The Reaper
Michael Aye - 2005
He has just been decorated for extraordinary bravery under fire, been given command of the fourth-rate Drakkar, learned from his father's deathbed that he as a fully grown illegitimate brother, and will soon be dispatched on a special mission chasing pirates in the Caribbean…and that's just in the first fifteen pages! Honoring his dying father, the eponymous "Fighting James Anthony," Vice Admiral of the Blue, Gil takes his half-brother Gabriel into the ship's company as a senior midshipman. As Drakkar sails, Captain Anthony soon realizes having his brother aboard might not be the family reunion he hoped for when he encounters the resentment of one of his officers, Lieutenant Witzenfeld.But the real conflict lies ahead with the menacing pirate raiders who must be captured to end the depredations against peaceful English merchants. There Drakkar will find the feared pirate frigate Reaper and have her entire crew tested in savage combat!Boson Books also offers HMS Seawolf and Barracuda by Michael Aye. For an author bio, photo, and sample read visit bosonbooks.com
The Fuhrer’s Orphans : a moving and powerful novel based on true events
David Laws - 2020
Their parents have been sent to concentration camps and they have nowhere else to go.Teacher Claudia Kellner discovers the group when she first takes in two homeless victims, risking her own safety by giving them shelter.Meanwhile, Commando Peter Chesham, a spy working for the British, succeeds in entering Third Reich territory. But his top-secret mission is threatened when he discovers the hiding place of the orphans.If he continues with his mission it will have fatal consequences for everyone around him, but if he doesn’t, the Nazis could win the war. Peter faces the agonising dilemma; obey orders or save the children.Will he lead the ultimate escape operation or complete the task he has been given?What he decides could determine the fate of history…Based on true events The Fuhrer’s Orphans is a powerful and moving novel set during the Second World War and is perfect for fans of Heather Morris and Robert Harris.
All That Jazz
Dee Williams - 2008
Times are tough and, to support her sister, Daisy has to work hard as a dancer in a nightclub, getting home late and hardly seeing Mary-Jane. One night a fire starts and Mary-Jane is alone in the house. The night's events lead to the sisters being split up and Daisy May begins to fear that she will never see Mary-Jane again...
The Lark in the Morn
Elfrida Vipont - 1948
Along with three older brothers who are currently away at school, dreamy, untidy Kit has been raised by their young, energetic cousin Laura. Ever since the death of Professor Haverard s wife, Laura has given herself to maintaining an ordered life for her uncle, conscientiously caring for his children, but also jealously protecting him from the day to day affairs of the household.Though Kit is a frustration to her orderly cousin, a stranger to her father and a puzzle to herself, she finds comfort in the realm of make-believe in books and in time shared with her close friends Pony and Helen. Her world begins to expand when, after an illness, she goes to stay with members of her mother's family whom she has never met. To her own amazement, Kit discovers within herself a deep love for music and as a person and as a singer she begins to raise her voice.
Seven for a Secret
Mary Webb - 1922
Although she was acclaimed by John Buchan and by Rebecca West, who hailed her as a genius, and won the Prix Femina of La Vie Heureuse for Precious Bane (1924), she won little respect from the general public. It was only after her death that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, earned her posthumous success through his approbation, referring to her as a neglected genius at a Literary Fund dinner in 1928. Her writing is notable for its descriptions of nature, and of the human heart. She had a deep sympathy for all her characters and was able to see good and truth in all of them. Among her most famous works are: The Golden Arrow (1916), Gone to Earth (1917), and Seven for a Secret (1922).
The Other Facts of Life
Morris Gleitzman - 1994
His unwilling father is sent to explain the facts of life to him - only to find the questions Ben asks are far tougher than he expected, and he doesn't have the answers. Ben mounts an inspired crusade that is both deadly serious - and very funny.