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Liz Kessler Books

From million-copy bestselling author Liz Kessler comes the powerful new landmark World War II novel for fans of Michael Morpurgo and Phil Earle.

When Liv finds a secret box from her grandmother’s childhood she uncovers an extraordinary war-time story of bravery, betrayal and daring defiance. A story that will change Liv and her family forever…

Holland, 1942. The world is at war and as the Nazis’ power grows, Jewish families are in terrible danger. Twelve-year-old Mila and her older sister Hannie are sent to live with a family in another city with new identities and the strict instruction not to tell anyone that they are Jewish.

Hannie, determined to fight back, is swept into the Dutch resistance as an undercover agent: Code Name Kingfisher. And though Mila does her best to make friends and keep out of trouble, there is danger at every turn and the sisters are soon left questioning who they can trust…

The title of this new book by Liz Kessler, author of the Emily Windsnap series, may fool some readers into thinking that this is a story centred around a Viking adventure of some sort. It is in fact, a stand-alone Emily Windsnap story that features the determination, bravery and quick thinking of Emily and her friends as they try, against powerful forces, to save the world from needless destruction.

The adventure starts off as a holiday in a magical yet inaccessible mist-covered island in the middle of the sea. Emily decides to take her new possession found on the rocks – a bangle with a blue crystal. Quickly, it piques everyone’s interest. Could it be a piece of jewellery that was part of a huge Viking stash lost in a storm a thousand years before? Being half human and half mermaid means Emily and her friends can easily find out more by exploring the seafloor for a shipwreck and its treasure. And so an innocent quest starts, but it soon turns into something more sinister because the sea bed isn’t a flat and friendly place to explore after all – it contains deep trenches, caves and tunnels which prove to be unstable. With the crystal glowing on her bangle, Emily encourages her friends to follow their noses through the thick black sea, until they stumble upon an unexpected thousand-year-old mystery.

The mystery reveals a hidden threat to the world, and so the gang must get back through the falling rocks, the sinking trenches and back to the island and work out exactly how to solve the problem. This is a fun and engaging book for any reader who likes adventure with fantasy, and many will appreciate the hidden rhetoric of fighting to protect our planet’s resources to maintain the balance of nature, despite the actions of a few.

A powerful and heart-breaking novel about three childhood friends living during the Second World War whose fates are closely intertwined, even when their lives take very different courses. Inspired by a true story, this is the perfect read for fans of The Book Thief and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.

Vienna, 1936.

Elsa, Leo and Max have always been best friends, a special team of three. Then the Nazis come.

As a growing darkness descends around them, Leo and Elsa run for their lives, taking two very different paths across Europe. And Max, once their closest friend, now becomes the enemy as he is drawn into the Hitler Youth. Will the friends ever find their way back to each other? Will they want to?

Inspired by a true story, WHEN THE WORLD WAS OURS is an extraordinary novel that is as powerful as it is heartbreaking, and shows how the bonds of love, family and friendship allow glimmers of hope to flourish, even in the most hopeless of times.

Three friends. Two sides. One memory.

This is a book I read as an adult (after it being highly recommended to me by my own children) and I absolutely loved it. When Jessica begins to turn invisible, she and her friends set off on an adventure to find out why. It turns out that a rose quartz necklace Jessica was given as a birthday gift was reacting to a serum/potion she didn’t know she had accidently come into contact with at birth, and it’s causing invisibility. And Jessica’s not alone – there are others out there who also came into contact with the same experimental serum at birth. Finding them, and finding out what happened, leads her to eventually saving herself and her friends from danger. Fast paced, clever and fun.

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