National Network for Equitable Library Service

Captain Alexander de Milja understands that his life, as he knows it, is over. But even in this bleakest of circumstances, all need not be lost. At a decimated cavalry stable under the droning German bombers, Alexander is offered a choice: die in a last stand, or accept a new appointment--and discover a way to keep on fighting even in the face of defeat. His first mission: lead the final refugee train south from doomed Warsaw.

Bulgaria, 1934. The local fascists have just murdered the brother of Khristo Stoianev. Now Khristo is recruited into the NKVD--the Soviet secret police--for special service in the Spanish civil war.

Andre Szara, a Polish journalist who becomes a spy for the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, is ordered to complete many tasks of espionage in Paris. Through Szara's character, the beginnings of World War II are revealed.

Seventeen-year-old Orchid belongs to an aristocratic family that has fallen on hard times. Unexpectedly, she is chosen as one of the emperor's lesser concubines. Within the Forbidden City are thousands of women hoping to bear the emperor a son and become his empress. Orchid, determined and resourceful, schemes her way into the royal bed and seduces the emperor. But as the opium trade erodes the might of the Ch'ing dynasty, Orchid find herself at the center of a crumbling nation.

During the 1937 attack on Nanjing, American missionary and women's college dean Minnie Vautrin decides to remain at her school during a violent Japanese attack that renders the school a refugee center for ten thousand women and children.

Following her discovery selling oranges outside of Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, Ellen "Nell" Gwyn leaves behind a life of poverty to become a theatre star. Soon she is mistress to the libertine King Charles II. And though their love is true, gossip-mongers and court politics threaten to tear their romance apart.

The story of a thirteen-year-old boy in London growing up during the second world war.

"A coming-of-age novel about a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Toronto in the 1960s with a father who tortures him psychologically. His world opens up when he realizes he is gay"--Provided by publisher.

Set in 1961 Canada, In a Wide Country tells the story of twelve-year-old Jasper and his mother, Corrine, traveling together from Winnipeg to a farm in Alberta, then Edmonton, then to Vancouver.

In the Great Fire of Smyrna (1922), Kivelli lost everything: her family, her friends, her social position, and her future. Stranded in the Greek city of Piraeus, populated by gangsters, prostitutes, fortune tellers, and other refugees, she finds herself living in the broom closet of a brothel. Luckily, the sound of her singing voice captures the attention of a local taverna owner, who suggests she come with him and perform for his customers.