City of Fate

Imagine your home is bombed one Sunday afternoon by a horde of enemy planes. Imagine your family has gone and you are left behind. This is the fate of five-year-old Peter and two teenagers Yuri and Tanya. Imagine being ordered to leave school to fight the terrifying Nazis in WWII. Imagine you are right in the middle of a battle; it's you or them - you have no choice. This is the fate of Vlad and his three classmates. The battlefield is the city of Stalingrad, the pride of Russia. Germany's Adolf Hitler wants the city badly, but Josef Stalin refuses to let go. Nobody has managed to stop the triumphant Nazi invasion across Europe. It all depends on one city - Stalingrad - her citizens, her soldiers and her children.

Nicola Pierce published her first book for children, Spirit of the Titanic, to rave reviews and five printings within its first twelve months. City of Fate, her second book, transported the reader deep into the Russian city of Stalingrad during World War II. The novel was shortlisted for the Warwickshire School Library Service Award, 2014. Nicola went on to bring seventeenth-century Ireland vividly to life in Behind the Walls (2015), a rich emotional novel set in the besieged city of Derry in 1689, followed by Kings of the Boyne (2016), a moving and gritty account capturing the Battle of the Boyne (1690), which was shortlisted for the Literacy Association of Ireland (LAI) awards. In 2018 Nicola delved in to the true stories of the passengers, crew and the legacy of the fated ship Titanic, in her illustrated book of the same name. To read more about Nicola, go to her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NicolaPierce-Author and on Twitter @NicolaPierce3.