The Girl Behind The Gates

***TOP TEN BESTSELLER*** 'Compelling. Poignant. Haunting. Heart wrenching. Just beautiful. Everyone needs to read this wonderful book.' - Renita D'Silva, bestselling author of The Forgotten Daughter 1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her. 1981. When psychiatrist Janet Humphreys comes across Nora, heavily institutionalised and still living in the hospital more than forty years after her incarceration, she knows that she must be the one to help Nora rediscover what it is to live. But as she works to help Nora overcome her past, Janet realises she must finally face her own. Based on a true story, The Girl Behind the Gates is perfect for fans of The Girl in the Letter and Philomena. Further praise for THE GIRL BEHIND THE GATES: 'The Girl behind the Gates absorbed me from the start. A haunting, heart-wrenching but ultimately heart-warming novel.' - Gill Thompson, bestselling author of The Oceans Between Us 'The Girl Behind the Gates is a powerful, emotional novel. I was moved to tears by the ending and will certainly not hesitate to recommend it.' - Jill Childs, bestselling author of Gracie's Secret 'A powerful story of trust, compassion, healing - and the transforming power of love, that can give new life to a broken spirit.' - Sharon Maas, bestselling author of The Violin Maker's Daughter Readers LOVE The Girl Behind the Gates! 'The best book of the year. I read 125 books a year and this is the best I have read' - 5 STARS 'I can't stop crying having just finished the book. It's an incredible piece of literary genius' - 5 STARS 'A story that needs to be told' - 5 STARS 'An inspirational and very moving story' - 5 STARS 'Just brilliant. I wholeheartedly recommend this book' - 5 STARS 'I hardly ever write a review but if you read one book this year this is it' - 5 STARS 'A very moving and heartbreaking story' - 5 STARS 'I would have given this book 10 STARS if I could' - 5 STARS 'This book is beautifully written and captivating in every way' - 5 STARS

In a terrifying future world, four girls must depend on each other if they want to survive.Louisa is nervous about being sent away to a boarding school -- but she’s excited, too. And she has her best friend, Maddie, to keep her company. The girls have to pretend to be twin sisters, which Louisa thinks just adds to the adventure!Country Manor School isn’t all excitement, though. Louisa isn’t sure how she feels about her new roommates: athletic but snobby Rosie and everything’s-a-conspiracy Evelyn. Even Maddie seems different away from home, quiet and worried all the time. Still, Louisa loves CMS -- the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn’t even miss not having a TV, or the internet, or any contact with home. It’s for their own safety, after all. Or is it?

In a terrifying future world, four girls must depend on each other if they want to survive. Now that Maddie has been rescued from the school that was secretly an Alliance training base, she knows more about her world than she ever thought possible. Her mother, she discovers, is the leader of the Resistance. And now Maddie, Evelyn, Rosie, and Louisa-as well as other friends they have made along the way-must journey into the heart of a war-torn Chicago in order to track down her mother... and find the way to freedom.

In a terrifying future world, four girls must depend on each other if they want to survive.Now that best friends Louisa, Rosie, Evelyn, and Maddie know the truth -- or at least the danger they're in -- the girls have run away from their "safe" country retreat. But life is riskier than ever, and Rosie still doesn't know who she can trust. Rosie's survival skills are top-notch. But how well can she keep her own secrets?

In a fragile alliance, the natives are stirring uneasily under their foreign rulers. Rebellion is brewing, and at the heart of the conflict lies the bloody and powerful cult of the god Aoun, whose followers will stop at nothing to rid their land of alien domination. So civil servant Renille vo Chaumelle, scion of a proud, conquering line mingled with native blood, is conscripted as a spy and ordered to penetrate the fortress-temple known as the Fastness of the Gods. There he is to discover the secrets of the priests of Aoun and - if the chance presents itself - assassinate the lead priest, named in legend as the god's own son. But in the holiest depths of the temple, Renille finds there is more to the cult than his superiors suspect - far more than they will ever believe. What he learns leads him to the beautiful princess Jathondi, daughter of the native ruler, who is fated to be the crux of a violent confrontation between the fanatic followers of a flesh-hungry god and their arrogant overlords. Together, Jathondi and Renille must brave a whirlwind of revolution and apocalyptic magic that could shatter a nation, and open the long-sealed portal between heaven and earth.

2014 Red Cedar Book Award — Shortlisted 2014 Forest of Reading, Silver Birch Express — Shortlisted, Fiction 2013 Diamond Willow Award — Shortlisted 2013 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award — Shortlisted 2013 Saskatchewan Young Reader’s Choice Award — Shortlisted 2013 White Ravens Award — Commended What do you do when the park next door is inhabited by 400-year-old creatures? Christopher has a problem. He has just moved to Toronto. He has a new school and no friends. But even worse, the park next door is creepy: voices whisper in the bushes, and something throws apples at his window and howls at the moon. But what? Gargoyles! Their names are Gargoth and Ambergine, and they need help. An evil thief called the Collector is after them and wants to lock them away in his dark mansion, forever. Befriending a gargoyle takes courage, but it’s worth it. Once he does, Christopher suddenly has more friends than he ever imagined, including Katherine, a girl from his class who knows the gargoyles, as well. When the Collector steals Ambergine, it’s up to Christopher and Katherine to get her back, as long as something else doesn’t catch them along the way. This is the third book in the award-nominated Lost Gargoyle series.

When French troops occupy the Italian port city of Ancona, freeing the city’s Jews from their repressive ghetto, it unleashes a whirlwind of progressivism and brutal backlash as two very different cultures collide. Mirelle, a young Jewish maiden, must choose between her duty—an arranged marriage to a wealthy Jewish merchant—and her love for a dashing French Catholic soldier. Meanwhile, Francesca, a devout Catholic, must decide if she will honor her marriage vows to an abusive and murderous husband when he enmeshes their family in the theft of a miracle portrait of the Madonna. Set during the turbulent days of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Italian campaign (1796–97), Beyond the Ghetto Gates is both a cautionary tale for our present moment, with its rising tide of anti-Semitism, and a story of hope—a reminder of a time in history when men and women of conflicting faiths were able to reconcile their prejudices in the face of a rapidly changing world.

1944, Germany: Gazing through the barbed wire fence, up to the pale blue sky, Antonia dreams of home: cherry orchards, golden fields, and the man she loves, who she may never see again... Resistance fighter Antonia is out in the forest behind her family's beloved farm when the Nazi soldiers arrive. As she sees her sister Lena and her young nephews herded towards the trucks, guns pointed at their heads, she faces a split-second, heart-wrenching decision: to stay hidden, stay free and continue the fight. Or to give herself up and go with her family to protect them-no matter what lies ahead. As she clutches her nephew's little hand in hers, her other arm tight around Lena, she knows she has made the right choice. And as the truck rattles towards a brutal labor camp, and they start to wonder what fate has in store for them, Antonia's only thought is of how to escape. Because before they were captured, Antonia worked tirelessly to free her country from those who had turned her homeland into a bloody battleground. By her side had been clever, handsome Viktor. The man she was to marry, whose love shone like a light in the darkness of war surrounding them. Antonia does not know if Viktor has been caught or executed. But she knows she must try to find a way back to him and she cannot wait any longer to be saved. Her precious nephews will die without proper food and they could all be killed at any moment. The world outside the camp gates is full of danger, but they have to find a way through them first. And that is their only hope, even if it costs Antonia her life. The Nazis have taken everything from her, but they can never take away her courage... A heartbreaking, inspiring and totally unforgettable story of the unbelievable courage and determination of extraordinary people in the darkest days of war. Fans of Kristin Hannah, Fiona Valpy, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz will be gripped from the very first page until the final, heart-stopping conclusion.