Fiction Survival Stories

In the heart of darkening Europe, amidst the looming war, "Vienna on Fire" by Don Gabor tells the riveting story of Greta Kolbe, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman whose life was upended when German troops annexed Austria in 1938. Her peaceful existence is replaced by a nightmare of terror as she, along with Vienna's Jewish community, faces an ordeal of intimidation. Greta's journey of resilience begins as she flees Nazi Vienna to escape arrest for her resistance activities, embarking on a dangerous trek to Holland, with a spiteful ex-suitor and the Gestapo closely trailing her.

Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj's livelihood comes at a terrible cost. When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. Most aki are driven mad by the process, but 17-year-old Taj is cocky and desperate to provide for his family. When Taj is called to eat a sin of a member of the royal family, he's suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos.

Morgan's life is not easy. Growing up on the streets of City Four, he is constantly shunned by the other citizens. Morgan doesn't mind being ignored. What he does mind, though, are the constant beatings from the city guards due to his friendship with Sarah, the city lord's only daughter. Lord Simon wants him dead, but the laws of the kingdom are on Morgan’s side and even the guards won't kill him, just for being seen near his manor. Morgan’s time is running out, though. Lord Simon has deep pockets and his last visit to the manor may just have put him over the edge.

Fifth grade is off to a terrible start when Frederick is sent to a disciplinary camp for troublesome boys. His fellow troop mates - Nosebleed, Specs, The Professor, and little-yet-lethal Ant Bite - are terrifying. But in between trust-building exercises and midnight escape attempts, a tenuous friendship grows between them. Which is lucky, because a category 5 hurricane is coming, and everyone will have to work together to survive! Kate Beasley outdoes herself in this hilarious, whip-smart tale of brotherhood, survival, and what it really means to be a friend.

A horrible tempest hurls an abandoned ship against the shoal rocks with the force of a hurricane. Once the tremendous storm passes, a family appears from within the crushed vessel. Now a father, a mother, and their four sons must carve out a new life for themselves on an unchartered tropical island. Come and join the Swiss Family Robinson, as they learn how to survive while battling the savage forces of nature and discover the wonders of their own paradise.

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy: sizzling-hot Ian. At first it's exhilarating - Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the grand-prize round.

Rick is like many Americans. He's concerned with what he sees on the news, and how the country seems to be ready to tear itself apart. His biggest concern has been civil unrest. Already an avid camper, he sets out to secure his future, and career, by finding his own Eden.

Emmett Atwater thought Babel's game sounded easy. Get points. Get paid. Go home. But it didn't take long for him to learn that Babel's competition was full of broken promises, none darker or more damaging than the last one. Now Emmett and the rest of the Genesis spaceship survivors must rally and forge their own path through a new world. Their mission from Babel is simple: extract nyxia, the most valuable material in the universe, and play nice with the indigenous Adamite population. But Emmett and the others quickly realize they are caught between two powerful forces.

First came the storms. Then came the Fever. And the Wall. After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct...but in reality, a new primitive society has been born. Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader's newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted.

When the magical waters of the Pirate Stream begin flooding Marrill's world, the only way to stop the destruction is to return to the stream and find the source of the mysterious Iron Tide. Reunited with her best friend, Fin - who has been forgotten all over again - Marrill, her disbelieving babysitter, and the Enterprising Kraken crew must make the treacherous trek to the towering, sliding, impossible world of Monerva and uncover the secrets of its long-lost wish machine.

When Charlie’s longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie’s world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It’s become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins.

Eleven-year-old Japanese American Owen has been in Japan for his sixth-grade year. By March he finally feels like he's getting the hang of the new culture, making friends at school, and feeling at home with the "weird" food. But early one morning, everything changes - and Owen suddenly finds himself just trying to survive one of history's most devastating disasters.

First they defeated Mr. January. Next they trapped his sister, Mrs. Prosper. Now Eleanor and her best friends, Pip and Otto, have one last chance to escape the People Who Look Away. The last of the evil siblings is their most formidable opponent yet, with two vicious hounds at her side and the ability to open roads across time and worlds.

A contemporary My Side of the Mountain, Stranded is the story of a wilderness-hungry Black girl from Manhattan whose journey in the Adirondack mountains becomes a nail-biting story of courage, independence, and survival.

First a Canadian Rockies avalanche kills their parents. Then Children’s Services threatens to separate them. That’s when the three Gunnarsson kids decide to run away into the mountains and fend for themselves until the oldest turns 18 and becomes their legal guardian. Not many would dare. But Jon, Korka, and Aron’s parents ran a survival school. Turns out their plan is full of holes.

Gutsy and her friends, along with Benny and his crew, have just survived a massive attack on New Alamo by the Night Army - a mix of mindless shambling los muertos and sentient half-zombie ravagers. She's also reeling from the revelation that the residents of her town were the lab rats of the biological testing facility linked to creating the most dangerous zom, the Raggedy Man, who controls all of the living dead. And the first raid was only a test. The real Night Army is coming, and this time, it'll be a handful of survivors against seven billion zombies.

Francie and her parents are on a spring road trip: driving from British Columbia, Canada, to hike in the Grand Canyon. When a shortcut leads them down an old logging road, disaster strikes. Their truck hits a rock and wipes out the oil pan. They are stuck in the middle of nowhere. Francie can't help feeling a little excited—she'd often imagined how she'd survive if she got stranded in the bush, and now here they are. But will her survival skills—building fires, gathering dandelion leaves and fir needles for tea—be enough when hours stretch into days?

As the clock ticks closer and closer to the final Partial expiration date, humans and Partials stand on the brink of war. Caught in the middle, thousands of miles apart, are Samm and Kira: Samm, who is trapped on the far side of the continent beyond the vast toxic wasteland of the American Midwest; and Kira, now in the hands of Dr. Morgan, who is hell-bent on saving what's left of the Partials, even if she has to destroy Kira to do it.

Wisty has never felt as free as she does with Heath, especially when the two of them share and test their magic together. But when a merciless Wizard King from the mountains suddenly threatens war, Wisty must make an excruciating choice. Will she unite with Whit to fight the mounting dangers that could return their world to a tyrant's domain? Or will she trust the beautiful boy who has captured her heart?

The Count of Monte Cristo is a tale of revenge and retribution. Edmond Dantes, a young, energetic sailor, is falsely accused of treason on his wedding day and incarcerated in the forbidding Chateau d'If prison. His escape and ultimate revenge on those who wronged him makes this one of the most thrilling stories in French literature, as compelling now as when it was first published in 1846.