Posts with the custom taxonomy term Teen Characters

The Lady with the Dark Hair by Erin Bartels

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1879/present – France/Spain

Esther Markstrom and her artist mother have always been proud of their ancestor, painter Francisco Vella. They even run a small museum and gallery dedicated to raising awareness of his scandalously underappreciated work. But when Esther reconnects with her former art history professor, she finds her once-solid family history on shaky ground as questions arise about Vella’s greatest work–a portrait entitled The Lady with the Dark Hair.

In 1879, Catalan orphan-turned-fugitive Viviana Torrens has found sanctuary serving in the home of an aging artist in Southern France. It is in his studio that she meets Francisco Vella, a Gibraltarian merchant who sells artists’ pigments. When her past catches up to her, she is compelled to pose as Vella’s sister and join him on his travels or be deported back to Spain to stand trial. Along the way she will discover that the many parts she has been playing in order to hide her identity have far-reaching implications she never could have foreseen.

The Thrall’s Sword by Grace Caylor

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700s – Ireland

On the night Sigrid, a seventeen-year-old Norse slave, is to accompany her dead master on a fiery longship to Valhalla, the cruel Jarl Ragnar murders her mother.

When two fishermen rescue her from her fate in the seas, grief-stricken Sigrid joins them on their mission to warn the Irish of the oncoming Viking raiders. As she continues her journey, her hatred for Jarl Ragnar grows and she secretly vows to destroy him.

However, as her new friend Erik teaches her about his God, a surprising power begins to work inside her heart. Yet when Sigrid has the chance to seize vengeance, will sweet revenge or a foreign god free her from despair?

A Silver Willow by the Shore by Kelli Stuart

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1930s/Siberia – 1980s/Russia – Present Day/Tennessee

How do you face the future if you don’t know your own past?

When an unexpected pregnancy changes her dreams, seventeen-year-old Annie tries to keep it from her mother and her grandmother. But secrets have a way of coming out.

In a household of strong women, the arrival of a new life sets off a spiral of truth that reveals a past full of whispers and lies—a past that existed in another world under the heavy hand of Soviet oppression. This history has dictated the circumstances of the present, but hope, redemption, and forgiveness will grow in the rocky places of these generational differences.

A Silver Willow by the Shore is the story of the unshakeable love between mothers and daughters and of the impact that past decisions can have on present day circumstances. This novel weaves together the stories of generations of women, from the gulags of 1930’s Siberia, to the quiet oppression of 1980’s Soviet Moscow, to present day Tennessee. It is an unforgettable narrative of the treachery of secrets, and of the light that unites the heart of a family.

Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill

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1941 – California

Evalina Cassano’s life in an Italian-American family in 1941 is quiet and ordinary … until she falls in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants. Despite the scandal it would cause and the fact that interracial marriage is illegal in California, Evalina and Taichi vow they will find a way to be together. But anti-Japanese feelings erupt across the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and are incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp.

Degrading treatment at Manzanar Relocation Center is so difficult, Taichi doubts he will ever leave the camp alive. Treasured letters from Evalina are his sole connection to the outside world. Embracing the boldest action she can to help Taichi, Evalina begins to radically speak out at school and at home, shining a light on this dark and shameful racial injustice.

With their future together on the line, Evalina and Taichi can only hold true to their values and believe in their love against all odds to have any hope of making it back to one another.

 

The Merchant’s Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

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The Merchant’s Daughtermerchantsdaughter

Medieval – England

Annabel, once the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is trapped in indentured servitude to Lord Ranulf, a recluse who is rumored to be both terrifying and beastly. Her circumstances are made even worse by the proximity of Lord Ranulf’s bailiff—a revolting man who has made unwelcome advances on Annabel in the past.

Believing that life in a nunnery is the best way to escape the escalation of the bailiff’s vile behavior and to preserve the faith that sustains her, Annabel is surprised to discover a sense of security and joy in her encounters with Lord Ranulf. As Annabel struggles to confront her feelings, she is involved in a situation that could place Ranulf in grave danger.

Ranulf’s future, and possibly his heart, may rest in her hands, and Annabel must decide whether to follow the plans she has cherished or the calling God has placed on her heart

Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren

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Cascadecascade

14th century – 21st Century – Italy

Mom touched my underdress—a gown made six hundred years before—and her eyes widened as she rubbed the raw silk between thumb and forefinger. She turned and touched Lia’s gown. “Where did you get these clothes?”

Gabi knows she’s left her heart in the fourteenth century and she persuades Lia to help her to return, even though they know doing so will risk their very lives. When they arrive, weeks have passed and all of Siena longs to celebrate the heroines who turned the tide in the battle against Florence—while the Florentines will go to great lengths to see them dead.
But Marcello patiently awaits, and Gabi must decide if she’s willing to leave her family behind for good in order to give her heart to him forever.

Waterfall by Lisa T. Bergren

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Waterfallwaterfall

14th C. – Time Travel – Italy
 
Gabriella has never spent a summer in Italy like this one.
Remaining means giving up all she’s known and loved…
and leaving means forfeiting what she’s come to know…and love itself.
 
Most American teenagers want a vacation in Italy, but the Bentarrini sisters have spent every summer of their lives with their parents, famed Etruscan scholars, among the romantic hills. Stuck among the rubble of medieval castles in rural Tuscany on yet another hot, dusty archeological site, Gabi and Lia are bored out of their minds… until Gabi places her hand atop a handprint in an ancient tomb and finds herself in fourteenth-century Italy. And worse yet, in the middle of a fierce battle between knights of two opposing forces.
            And thus does she come to be rescued by the knight-prince Marcello Falassi, who takes her back to his father’s castle—a castle Gabi has seen in ruins in another life. Suddenly Gabi’s summer in Italy is much, much more interesting. But what do you do when your knight in shining armor lives, literally, in a different world?

William Henry is a Fine Name by Cathy Gohlke

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William Henry is a Fine Namewilliamhenryisafinename

1859 – Maryland and North Carolina

Thirteen-year-old Robert is torn between loyalty to his abolitionist father and his mother’s slave-holding family.

After his best friend, WIlliam Henry, is trapped in a deadly scheme to protect secrets of the Underground Railroad, Robert vows never to get involved again. But when he discovers his grandfather’s plan to sell his own son, born of a slave woman, Robert must decide whether to stand idly by or risk everything to help him escape.

“William Henry is a Fine Name” is a coming-of-age story, a tale of friends–and a nation–caught in the chaos of slavery, forced to take a stand.