Historical Literature For Teens

For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be a part of La Tofana’s, her mother’s apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she finally turns sixteen, she’s allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there’s another potion requiring darker ingredients.

Although the dark forces of Arawn are defeated, the Saxons have massed on the border of Wales, aiming for nothing less than the complete subjugation of the Welsh people. But defeating an army of Saxons is only the first step Rhiann, Cade, and their companions must take if they are to stop Mabon from claiming dominion over the human world for all eternity. The Pendragon’s Quest is the fourth book in The Last Pendragon Saga.

Mazelina of Wexcombe has always dreamed of traveling with her father to lands beyond the confining walls of their castle. But his sudden death deprives her of the future she imagined. Abandoned by her eldest brother, Mazy is soon forced to seek help from her beloved brother Sir John at the great estate of Strachleigh. Her visit leads to a friendship with the dashing and noble Sir Berenger of Dericott. He has notions of rescuing a damsel in distress. But Mazy is brave enough to defend herself—and has proven that her skills in archery and knife throwing rival that of a knight’s.

Roland Inness desperately needs meat for his starving family, but he takes the wrong deer on the wrong nobleman's land. Worse yet, he uses his longbow, a weapon outlawed and suppressed by the Norman overlords of England. Now they are coming for him. With one shot the 14 year old peasant boy is launched on a desperate flight that takes him from the mountains of Derbyshire to the wild frontier of Wales and on to the court of Richard the Lionheart.

The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself - for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways.

Paris, 1572. Seventeen-year-old Jacqueline “Jac” d’Argenson-Aunis is lady-in-waiting to her best friend and former lover, the French Princess Marguerite “Margot” de Valois, but she dreams of more. If Jac plays her cards right, one day, she’ll become a full member of the Societas Solis, a secret society of spies. But it’s hard to think about her own ambitions while France is on the brink of war, and the only thing that might save the country is an alliance—a marriage between the Catholic Princess Margot and Henry, the awful son of the Huguenot queen.

In 1911 New York City, 17-year-old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother months prior. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet - her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there.

England, 1388: All her life, Louisa has dreamed of finding the rumored "Giant's Treasure," a collection of ancient, lost riches said to be hidden on a mountaintop in Scotland, guarded by a fierce monster. It's a story her father used to tell her, and when he dies and she and her younger sister have to go live with their shiftless, greedy uncle, Louisa is determined to find that treasure. It's the hope that has kept her defying her uncle's efforts to marry her off to the highest bidder.

Lina is the enchanting but willful daughter of a village lord. She and her childhood companion, Damek, have grown up privileged and spoiled, and they're devoted to each other to the point of obsession. But Lina's violet eyes betray her for a witch, and witches are not tolerated in a brutally patriarchal society. Her rank protects her from persecution, but it cannot protect her from tragedy and heartbreak. An innocent visitor stands witness to the devastation that ensues as destructive longing unleashes Lina's wrath, and with it her forbidden power.

Isda does not exist. At least not beyond the opulent walls of the opera house. Cast into a well at birth for being one of the magical few who can manipulate memories when people sing, she was saved by Cyril, the opera house’s owner. Since that day, he has given her sanctuary. All he asks is that she use her power to keep ticket sales high - and that she stay out of sight. For if anyone discovers she survived, Isda and Cyril would pay with their lives. But Isda breaks Cyril’s cardinal rule when she meets Emeric Rodin, a charming boy who throws her quiet life out of balance.

At only seventeen years old, Ian Kabra is head of the Cahills, the most powerful family in the world. He has presidents on speed dial, generals at his beck and call. Ian knows he's an ideal leader and the only man for the job. There's just one small problem: He's already messed up big time. A Cahill from the past calling himself the Outcast has risen to challenge Ian with an impossible test. The Outcast has re-created four of history's greatest disasters and dared Ian to stop him.

With her crooked spine and reckless heart, Princess Meera always knew she wasn't meant to become queen of Ezo. But when her sister, the rightful heir, is cursed on the eve of her coronation, Meera must defend her kingdom from ruthless invaders by taking the throne.

Spring, 1943. The war is turning against Germany, but Hitler isn't giving up. In a secret bunker deep in occupied France, scientists are hard at work on Hitler's latest deadly weapon: code name FZG-76. Back in England Henderson's boys will need to undergo advanced sniper training if they've any chance of infiltrating the bunker. Parachuting into occupied France, they track down a secret dossier filled with invaluable material - and uncover the meaning of the enigmatic code.

Poland, July 1944. Sixteen-year-old Maria is making her way home after years of forced labor in Nazi Germany, only to find her village destroyed and her parents killed in a war between the Polish Resistance and Ukrainian nationalists. To Maria’s shock, the local Resistance unit is commanded by her older brother, Tomek - who she thought was dead. He is now a “Silent Unseen”, a special-operations agent with an audacious plan to resist a new and even more dangerous enemy sweeping in from the East.

When Petunia, the youngest of King Gregor's 12 dancing daughters, is invited to visit an elderly friend in the neighboring country of Westfalin, she welcomes the change of scenery. But in order to reach Westfalin, Petunia must pass through a forest where strange two-legged wolves are rumored to exist. Wolves intent on redistributing the wealth of the noble citizens who have entered their territory.

As the Revolutionary War begins, 13-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate, become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion.

They are each other's fiercest love, greatest danger, and only hope. Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost - one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God.

Ever since the dust storms arrived and turned her world upside down, ambitious Stella Fischer spends her mornings hiding moonshine in laundry stacks for delivery before returning home to help her sisters run their family home turned boarding house, hoping to make enough money to finally escape to Hollywood. She has no time for distractions, especially from Lloyd, the handsome drifter who works as a hired hand at the boarding house. When the group decides to forage for building materials at an abandoned cider mill, they discover a magical passage that sends them back to the mill in its prime.

The youngest of four daughters, Primrose Ainsworth is used to getting lost in the shuffle. But when her parents decide to delay her debut into English society, Prim hatches a plan to go rogue on the night of her 16th birthday. Donning a mask, Prim escapes to the infamous Vauxhall Gardens for one wild night. When her cover is nearly blown, a mysterious stranger intercedes, and Prim finds an unexpected partner in mischief...and romance. But when it's revealed her new ally isn't who he says he is, her one night of fun may last past dawn.

Myers is at his clever best in this witty and action-packed, coming-of-age story of a teenager's summer during the Harlem Renaissance and his run-ins with famous gangsters, writers, and musicians. It's 1925 and Mark Purvis is a 16-year-old with a summer to kill. He'd rather jam with his jazz band (they need the practice), but is urged by his parents to get a job. As an assistant at The Crisis, a magazine for the "new Negro", Mark rubs shoulders with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.