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    Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies
    Unavailable
    Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies
    Unavailable
    Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies
    Audiobook7 hours

    Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    Narrated by Karissa Vacker

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Newbery Honor-winning author Gennifer Choldenko deftly combines humor, tragedy, fascinating historical detail, and a medical mystery in this exuberant new novel.

    San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people . . . but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow's snobby school for girls. Lizzie's secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city-a side that's full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.

    The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook's son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in a heart-stopping race to save the people they love.

    Includes a Note Read by the Author.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 4, 2015
    ISBN9781101916346
    Unavailable
    Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies

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    Reviews for Chasing Secrets

    4/5

    41 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I read this book in one sitting as I sat at Idol's tires for an hour getting new tires that turned into five hours.
      This is my favorite genre, Historical Fiction.

      San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. An exciting time to be alive for lots of people . . . but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow's snobby school for girls. Lizzie's secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city--a side that's full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.
      The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook's son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in the challenging effort to save the people they love.
    • 4/5
      Lizzie chafes at some of the constraints and expectations of being a high-society girl in 1900 California. When her family's driver and cook, Jing doesn't come home and their is a quarantine called in Chinatown, Lizzie is desperate to track him down and get him back. His son, Noah, has been stashed in the servants quarters in Lizzie's house. And even though their friendship would be forbidden, they become fast friends. Lizzie's dad is a doctor and her uncle a famous newspaper man. When rumors about the plague abound, Lizzie doesn't know what to believe but she wants to investigate. Some of the secondary storylines and characters don't get fully developed. An engaging story, but I wonder how much it would resonate with young readers.
    • 4/5
      Not nearly as good as her other books. In this one, Lizzie lives in San Francisco and enjoys helping her doctor father with his patients. It's 1900, and Chinatown is under quarantine because of fears of the plague. But neither her father nor her uncle, who owns a large newspaper, believes the plague is here. It's up to Lizzie to figure out what's going on and to help save Chinatown and her loved ones.The problem I have with this book is the Lizzie does it all and she's too modern a character for the times.
    • 4/5
      Lizzie Kennedy loves going with her doctor father on his cases. Her Aunt Hortense is less thrilled and wants Lizzie to do well at the posh school she attends and be more of a lady. But Lizzie loves medicine and science. San Francisco in 1900 is soon to face an outbreak of bubonic plague. Her uncle who owns a newspaper and other powerful men are vested in keeping the outbreak hidden. It's bad for business and for tourism. Lizzie first gets involved when Jing, the Chinese housekeeper who has taken care of her family since her mother's death, is caught in the quarantine of Chinatown and Lizzie can't get him out. Jing has brought his son to Lizzie's house and hidden him in his room. Lizzie finds out and the two of them become friends when she gets involved in smuggling food to him and keeping him company.Lizzie's older brother Billy isn't the companion that he used to be. He and her father are at odds about what Billy's future should be. Billy is fighting in order to earn money to buy a car. He isn't much help in trying to get Jing out of Chinatown but Lizzie's new friends Gemma and Gus Trotter do help her.This story was great historical fiction. It illuminates a period of time and a place that seem very real. The author talks about the prejudice that the Chinese faced in California at that time. Lizzie and Jing's son Noah could never be friends in public without danger to him and social ostracism for her. The book also talks about the state of medicine at the time when many diseases were attributed to "bad air" and the germ theory of disease was only just coming into fashion. The story was well-written and the characters were well-rounded and engaging. I can't wait to share this story with my middle schoolers this fall.
    • 4/5
      This is a good middle grade historic fiction novel - set in San Francisco during the 1900s. The story is pretty good, but I loved the setting. Much of the story deals with the relationship between the upper middle class gentry of San Francisco and the poorer working class, who were typically Irish or Chinese. The details about Chinatown were riveting and good suspense around the possibility of a plague epidemic. This is touted as a mystery, and there is some mystery elements to the story, but if you're looking for taut suspense, then this one might be a little tame. But stands on its own as a historic fiction novel.
    • 5/5
      This is a very exciting account of an outbreak of the plague in San Francisco in 1900. Lizzie, the main character, is struggling with her place and her outspokenness and courage lead her to some pretty scary places. Great story.
    • 5/5
      Lizzie is a young girl being taught to grow up to be a "good host and good wife" and to live by the rules. When she finds a boy hiding in the attic, Noah, who is one of the helps sons. He is hiding from quarantine from the bubonic plague that comes to American in 1900. No one believes that the plague has come to the US but Lizzie knows the secret it has, she tries to save friends and family by getting them immunizations (her father being a doctor) and she helps him out.
    • 4/5
      Listened to the audiobook and after a bit of a slow start, the pace picked up and I found the story quite engaging. Great for fans of historical fiction, the author gives a well-rounded view of San Francisco in the early 1900s, from the very rich to the poor, as well as the imposing societal restrictions placed upon women and immigrants.