
Between Shades of Gray
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Narrated by:
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Emily Klein
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By:
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Ruta Sepetys
About this listen
An international best seller, a number-one New York Times best seller, and now a major motion picture!
Ruta Sepetys's Between Shades of Gray is now the film Ashes in the Snow!
"Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." (The Washington Post)
From New York Times and international best seller and Carnegie Medal winner Ruta Sepetys, author of Salt to the Sea, comes a story of loss and of fear - and ultimately, of survival.
A New York Times notable book
An international best seller
A Carnegie Medal nominee
A William C. Morris Award finalist
A Golden Kite Award winner
Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life - until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel perfect for fans of The Book Thief.
Praise for Between Shades of Gray:
"Superlative. A hefty emotional punch." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Heart-wrenching... an eye-opening reimagination of a very real tragedy written with grace and heart." (The Los Angeles Times)
"At once a suspenseful, drama-packed survival story, a romance, and an intricately researched work of historial fiction." (The Wall Street Journal)
"Beautifully written and deeply felt... An important book that deserves the widest possible readership." (Booklist, starred review)
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Critic reviews
Winner, Indies Choice Book Award
“Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both.” (The Washington Post)
"Beautiful...a superb though grueling novel.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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Easy to Love
- By FanB14 on 02-27-13
By: Ruta Sepetys
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The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip
- By: Sara Brunsvold
- Narrated by: Sara Farrington
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Aidyn Kelley is talented, ambitious, and ready for a more serious assignment than the fluff pieces she’s been getting as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. In her eagerness, she pushes too hard, earning herself the menial task of writing an obituary for an unremarkable woman who’s just entered hospice care.
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Lifechanging
- By Sara McCracken on 07-29-22
By: Sara Brunsvold
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Ashes in the Snow (Movie Tie-In)
- By: Ruta Sepetys
- Narrated by: Emily Klein
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life - until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she embeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp.
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Horrible narration...
- By Mary Sunshine on 02-14-20
By: Ruta Sepetys
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The Fountains of Silence
- By: Ruta Sepetys
- Narrated by: Ruta Sepetys, Maite Jáuregui, Richard Ferrone, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is 18-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother's birth through the lens of his camera. Photography - and fate - introduce him to Ana, whose family's interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War.
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Fantastic listen!
- By Jen on 04-07-20
By: Ruta Sepetys
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Yellow Crocus
- Yellow Crocus, Book 1
- By: Laila Ibrahim
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father.
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A rare find, a 5 star book!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-22-15
By: Laila Ibrahim
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I Must Betray You
- By: Ruta Sepetys
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Ruta Sepetys
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force. Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.
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Brilliant, dramatic, heartbreaking
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 02-04-22
By: Ruta Sepetys
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Where the Lost Wander
- A Novel
- By: Amy Harmon
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo, Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at 20. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both. But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart.
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Good story, bad reader
- By LoverofClassics on 06-09-20
By: Amy Harmon
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The Bletchley Riddle
- By: Ruta Sepetys, Steve Sheinkin
- Narrated by: Louis Hill, Georgina Jane, Ruta Sepetys, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.
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A war novel that champions the contributions of intellectuals and respects the children's experiences
- By Carolyn M Robinson on 03-15-25
By: Ruta Sepetys, and others
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Minor Detail
- By: Adania Shibli, Elisabeth Jaquette - translator
- Narrated by: Siiri Scott
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims, they capture a Palestinian teenager, and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder.
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Very powerful
- By Phillip Straghalis on 04-09-21
By: Adania Shibli, and others
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You: The Story
- A Writer's Guide to Craft Through Memory
- By: Ruta Sepetys
- Narrated by: Ruta Sepetys
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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#1 New York Times bestselling author Ruta Sepetys is known for creating vivid characters and harrowing plots. After five award-winning works of historical fiction and countless hours of meticulous research, she can affirm that the secret to strong writing is embedded within your life experience. You: The Story is a powerful how-to book for aspiring writers that encourages you to look inward and excavate your own memories in order to discover the authentic voices and compelling details that are waiting to be put on the page.
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The magical manner in which Ruta shared her life experiences was a joy. It warmed and melted my heart. Thank you.
- By Anonymous User on 11-09-24
By: Ruta Sepetys
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They Went Left
- By: Monica Hesse
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to 18-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.
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Heartbreakingly Beautiful
- By Willow Star Serenity on 04-10-20
By: Monica Hesse
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Homegoing
- A Novel
- By: Yaa Gyasi
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and will live in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising children who will be sent abroad to be educated before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the empire. Esi, imprisoned beneath Effia in the castle's women's dungeon and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, will be sold into slavery.
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A Novel in Stories
- By Daryl on 06-19-16
By: Yaa Gyasi
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The Light in Hidden Places
- By: Sharon Cameron
- Narrated by: Beata Poźniak
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1943, and for four years, 16-year-old Stefania has been working for the Diamant family in their grocery store in Przemsyl, Poland, singing her way into their lives and hearts. She has even made a promise to one of their sons, Izio - a betrothal they must keep secret since she is Catholic and the Diamants are Jewish.
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Honored...
- By Kami on 03-23-20
By: Sharon Cameron
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The Pearl Thief
- By: Elizabeth Wein
- Narrated by: Maggie Service
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the internationally acclaimed best-selling author of Code Name Verity comes a stunning new story of pearls, love and murder. Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate, and this will be a summer of good-byes. Not least to the McEwen family - Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember.
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Freshwater Pearls and Scottish Plaid
- By Cynthia on 08-14-17
By: Elizabeth Wein
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The Book Thief
- By: Markus Zusak
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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It's just a small story really, about, among other things, a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist: books.
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Glad I took a chance.
- By Robert on 08-20-11
By: Markus Zusak
What listeners say about Between Shades of Gray
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- Ellie Spruill
- 12-14-18
Heartfelt
I just love this book so much and I really wish there was more of the story.
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- Kathy
- 05-28-16
A must read
I've read many books about Nazi atrocities. This one covers Stalin and Russian brutality toward their citizens. The story is harsh. It is told from the viewpoint of a brave young girl trying to survive in a Siberian camp with her mother and brother. The characters are rich. The grit it to to survived makes a compelling story. It is also a story to remind us that we as a nation need to do what we can to prevent this from happening to other groups.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-09-18
Beutiful Book
This book was so good it was about to make me cry but i loved it and the reader of this book is awsome
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-24-17
A must read- but difficult content to stomach.
Horrifying what the Baltic people went through. Beautifully written. I hope everyone reads this and remembers all of the innocent lives lost.
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- sawence
- 02-05-18
A Must Read for All
This is my second time listening to this story. It is a painful but powerful story that I recommend to all of my friends. I absolutely love all of Ruta's books.
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- Nakia
- 02-15-16
AMAZEBALLS!!
Most amazing book!! Great narrating and pronunciations. Would definitely recommend to everyone!! Everyone should read this book!!
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-21-21
Freedom
A truly Great story! Rated it 5 star. Can’t image that any human would treat another human like that but it occurred and so glad Ruta Sepetys documented it! It’s a sad story so be prepared. But it does have a great ending!
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- Anonymous User
- 08-04-21
innocent
wow. such an eye opening book. how quickly your life can change. beautiful written.
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- jolanta
- 09-18-20
curious about history
I highly recommend this book. story is compelling, heartbreaking and thought provoking.
My grandfather was deported to siberia and when he returned to Lithuania his health was poor. sadly I never had a chance to meet him. this story has ignited curiosity to learn more about my countries history and speak to elders to get there perspective.
Thank you Ruta for this book and your pursuit to know your heritage.
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- Jessi
- 04-06-22
My daughter told me about this book.
It caused me to go down a rabbit hole. I have looked up and researched more about Joseph Stalin. I didn’t even know who he was. I want to know more about Lina and Andras. I wish our schools would make this book mandatory for students.
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