A Courageous Escape


Book Description

Emma Konrad's family were just a few of the three million Sudeten Germans living in Czechoslovakia. The Second World War provided enough disruption to the life of a young girl training to be a teacher, but at the end of the war things became even more fearful. Fleeing her country with her sister, a long and eventful journey followed for Emma.




Escape from Aleppo


Book Description

After Nadia is separated from her family while fleeing the civil war, she spends the next four days with a mysterious old man who helps her navigate the checkpoints and snipers of the rebel, ISIS, and Syrian armies that are littering Aleppo on her way to meeting her father at the Turkish border.




Defiant Courage


Book Description

The incredible true story of one man’s escape from Nazis in Norway. “I remember reading We Die Alone in 1970 and I could never forget it. Then when we went to Norway to do a docudrama, people told us again and again that certain parts were pure fiction. Since I was a Norwegian that was not good enough; I had to find the truth. I sincerely believe we did,” writes author Astrid Karlsen Scott. Defiant Courage is the true story of what Jan Baalsrud endured as he tried to escape from the Gestapo in Norway’s Troms District. In late March 1943, in the midst of WWII, four Norwegian saboteurs arrived in northern Norway on a fishing cutter and set anchor in Toftefjord to establish a base for their operations. However, they were betrayed, and a German boat attacked the cutter, creating a battlefield and spiraling Jan Baalsrud into the adventure of his life. The only survivor, a wounded Baalsrud begins a perilous journey to freedom, swimming icy fjords, climbing snow-covered peaks, enduring snowstorms, and getting caught in a monstrous avalanche. More than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud, suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, to freedom. Meticulously researched for more than five years, Karlsen Scott and Haug bring forth the truth behind this captivating, edge-of-your-seat, real-life survival story. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.




Escaping Hitler


Book Description

Some of the great untold stories of the Second World War concern the freedom trails, the highly dangerous escape routes out of Nazi Occupied Europe. Over 5,000 British, Commonwealth and American servicemen made the journey over the Pyrenees, the Slovenian mountains and the Italian alps. Many also died en route, killed by the perilous conditions or caught by the German army. It was just as dangerous for the brave men and women of the resistance who kept the routes open. The Freedom Trails includes the stories of the most charismatic figures of the Second World War, men like Blondie Haslar, leader of the Cockleshell Heroes, US airman Chuck Yaeger (whose story was immortalised in The Right Stuff) and Australian Ralph Churches who orchestrated the mass escape of 100 POWs from Slovenia. There are heroes like Andree de Jongh, a young woman in her twenties who risked her life to smuggle men through occupied France, survived being sent to two concentration camps, and has been described by MI-9 as 'the greatest of our war-time agents'). And villains like traitor Harold Cole who betrayed all the men and women who tried to help him escape France, giving their details to the Gestapo. Mixing in depth research, interviews with survivors and his own experience of walking the trails, broadcaster and former Royal Marine Monty Halls brings the past to life in this dramatic and gripping slice of military history.




The Brave Escape of Ellen and William Craft


Book Description

Recounts the story of Ellen and William Craft's daring escape in 1848 from slavery in Georgia to freedom in Pennsylvania.




The Auschwitz Escape


Book Description

Joel C. Rosenberg delivers a spellbinding novel about one of the darkest times in human history.




The Greatest Escape


Book Description

The Greatest Escape: A True American Civil War Adventure tells the story of the largest prison breakout in U.S. history. It took place during the Civil War, when more than 1,200 Yankee officers were jammed into Libby, a special prison considered escape-proof, in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia. A small group of men, obsessed with escape, mapped out an elaborate plan and one cold and clear night, 109 men dug their way to freedom. Freezing, starving, clad in rags, they still had to travel 50 miles to Yankee lines and safety. They were pursued by all the white people in the area, but every Black person they encountered was their friend. In every instance, slaves risked their lives to help these Yankees, and their journey was aided by a female-led Union spy network. Since all the escapees were officers, they all could read and write well. Over 50 of them would publish riveting accounts of their adventures. This is the first book to weave together these contemporary accounts into a true-to-life narrative. Much like a Ken Burns documentary, this book uses the actual words the prisoners recorded more than 150 years ago, as found in their many diaries and journals.




Escape Under the Forever Sky


Book Description

Loosely based on real-life events, this suspenseful story, by a debut novelist, is also funny and touching and will have readers riveted from start to finish. Lucy's mother is the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, so Lucy's life must be one big adventure, right? Wrong. Lucy's worrywart mother keeps her locked up inside the ambassador's residence. All Lucy can do is read about the exotic and exciting world that lies beyond the compound walls and imagine what it would be like to be a part of it. That is, until one day Lucy decides she has had enough and she and a friend sneak off for some fun. But to their horror, Lucy gets kidnapped! With only herself to rely upon, Lucy must use her knowledge of African animals, inventiveness, will, and courage to escape, and in the process embarks on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination. Includes bonus material! - Book Club Discussion Guide




Give Me Courage


Book Description

‘Here in Africa, two wives is nothing. You white people just have affairs. You lie and cheat. At least we’re honest.’ Lenuta ‘Hellen’ Nadolu has led a tumultuous life. A strong-willed free spirit, she was born and raised in communist Romania, where women were supposed to know their place. At the age of nineteen, her life changed when she started seeing a handsome African doctor named Victor and fell pregnant. To avoid the wrath of Hellen’s domineering father and an unforgiving community, the couple married and then, against everyone’s advice, moved to Ghana. But Africa was nothing like Hellen had imagined: Victor considered her merely a possession with few rights and expected her to turn a blind eye to his affairs. Pushed to the brink, she made a desperate decision – she would get a divorce and smuggle her three children out of the country. But no Western woman had ever divorced a Ghanaian man – let alone been granted custody of the children – and Victor’s powerful family would not give her up without a fight … Give Me Courage is an inspiring true story of survival and escape.




Freedom Swimmer


Book Description

A powerful story of friendship, bravery, and a desperate bid for freedom, inspired by true events. Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the village as part of a Communist Party re-education program, Ming and his friends aren't sure what to make of the new arrivals. They're not used to hard labor and village life. But despite his reservations, Ming befriends a charming city boy called Li. The two couldn't be more different, but slowly they form a bond over evening swims and shared dreams. But as the bitterness of life under the Party begins to take its toll on both boys, they begin to imagine the impossible: freedom.