
Exile Music
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $22.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Hillary Huber
-
By:
-
Jennifer Steil
About this listen
Based on an unexplored slice of World War II history, Exile Music is the captivating story of a young Jewish girl whose family flees refined and urbane Vienna for safe harbor in the mountains of Bolivia.
As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, Orly has an idyllic childhood filled with music. Her father plays the viola in the Philharmonic, her mother is a well-regarded opera singer, her beloved and charismatic older brother holds the neighborhood in his thrall, and most of her eccentric and wonderful extended family live nearby. Only vaguely aware of Hitler's rise or how her Jewish heritage will define her family's identity, Orly spends her days immersed in play with her best friend and upstairs neighbor, Anneliese. Together they dream up vivid and elaborate worlds, where they can escape the growing tensions around them.
But in 1938, Orly's peaceful life is shattered when the Germans arrive. Her older brother flees Vienna first, and soon Orly, her father, and her mother procure refugee visas for La Paz, a city high up in the Bolivian Andes. Even as the number of Jewish refugees in the small community grows, her family is haunted by the music that can no longer be their livelihood, and by the family and friends they left behind. While Orly and her father find their footing in the mountains, Orly's mother grows even more distant, harboring a secret that could put their family at risk again. Years pass, the war ends, and Orly must decide: Is the love and adventure she has found in La Paz what defines home, or is the pull of her past in Europe - and the piece of her heart she left with Anneliese - too strong to ignore?
©2020 Jennifer Steil (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Last Year of the War
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa 14-year-old in 1943 - aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal US resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles.
-
-
Historical Fiction at its Best!
- By KAT M K on 04-06-19
By: Susan Meissner
-
The Girl with No Name
- By: Diney Costeloe
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirteen-year-old Lisa has escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. She arrives in London unable to speak a word of English, her few belongings crammed into a small suitcase. Among them is one precious photograph of the family she has left behind. Lonely and homesick, she is adopted by a childless couple. But when the Blitz blows her new home apart, she wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who she is or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and dispatch her to a children's home. With the war raging around her, what will become of Lisa now?
-
-
Omit the “f” words!
- By NanaB on 09-26-19
By: Diney Costeloe
-
Her Heart for a Compass
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Ferguson
- Narrated by: Sarah Ferguson, Ell Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The second daughter of the Queen’s close friend, the Scottish Duke of Buccleuch, Lady Margaret Montagu Scott is expected to make an advantageous marriage. But Margaret is an impulsive and outspoken girl in a repressive society where women are literally caged in corsets and required to conform. When Lady Margaret’s parents arrange a society marriage for her, she tries to reconcile herself to the match. But shortly before her betrothal is announced, Margaret flees, leaving her parents to explain her sudden absence to an opulent ballroom stuffed with two hundred distinguished guests.
-
-
Best audio performance
- By Wren on 08-12-21
By: Sarah Ferguson
-
House of Rougeaux
- By: Jenny Jaeckel
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following echoes between generations which defy normal time and space, a multilayered narrative celebrates the Rougeaux family triumphs while exposing the injustices of their trials. It begins with Iya, born in Africa in the 1700s, and brought to the Caribbean island of Martinique as a slave, and her two children, Adunbi and Abeje, who grow up on a sugar estate. The siblings endure because of the kindness of fellow bondsmen and their uncommon abilities.
-
-
An amazing journey.
- By William on 12-14-20
By: Jenny Jaeckel
-
Isaiah's Daughter
- A Novel of Prophets and Kings
- By: Mesu Andrews
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Nan McNamara
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this epic Biblical narrative, ideal for fans of The Bible miniseries, a young woman taken into the prophet Isaiah's household rises to capture the heart of the future king. Isaiah adopts Ishma, giving her a new name - Zibah, delight of the Lord - thereby ensuring her royal pedigree. Ishma came to the prophet's home, devastated after watching her family destroyed and living as a captive. But as the years pass, Zibah's lively spirit wins Prince Hezekiah's favor, a boy determined to rebuild the kingdom his father has nearly destroyed.
-
-
His Light & Prophecy Shine Through This Story!
- By Gail on 06-27-21
By: Mesu Andrews
-
The Invincible Miss Cust
- A Novel
- By: Penny Haw
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aleen Cust has big dreams. And no one―not her family, society, or the law―will stop her. Born in Ireland in 1868 to an aristocratic English family, Aleen knows she is destined to work with animals, even if her family is appalled by the idea of a woman pursuing a veterinary career. Going against their wishes but with the encouragement of the guardian assigned to her upon her father’s death, Aleen attends the New Veterinary College in Edinburgh, enrolling as A. I. Custance to spare her family the humiliation they fear.
-
-
Unassuming
- By Candace Bank on 04-19-23
By: Penny Haw
-
The Last Year of the War
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa 14-year-old in 1943 - aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal US resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles.
-
-
Historical Fiction at its Best!
- By KAT M K on 04-06-19
By: Susan Meissner
-
The Girl with No Name
- By: Diney Costeloe
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirteen-year-old Lisa has escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. She arrives in London unable to speak a word of English, her few belongings crammed into a small suitcase. Among them is one precious photograph of the family she has left behind. Lonely and homesick, she is adopted by a childless couple. But when the Blitz blows her new home apart, she wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who she is or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and dispatch her to a children's home. With the war raging around her, what will become of Lisa now?
-
-
Omit the “f” words!
- By NanaB on 09-26-19
By: Diney Costeloe
-
Her Heart for a Compass
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Ferguson
- Narrated by: Sarah Ferguson, Ell Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The second daughter of the Queen’s close friend, the Scottish Duke of Buccleuch, Lady Margaret Montagu Scott is expected to make an advantageous marriage. But Margaret is an impulsive and outspoken girl in a repressive society where women are literally caged in corsets and required to conform. When Lady Margaret’s parents arrange a society marriage for her, she tries to reconcile herself to the match. But shortly before her betrothal is announced, Margaret flees, leaving her parents to explain her sudden absence to an opulent ballroom stuffed with two hundred distinguished guests.
-
-
Best audio performance
- By Wren on 08-12-21
By: Sarah Ferguson
-
House of Rougeaux
- By: Jenny Jaeckel
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following echoes between generations which defy normal time and space, a multilayered narrative celebrates the Rougeaux family triumphs while exposing the injustices of their trials. It begins with Iya, born in Africa in the 1700s, and brought to the Caribbean island of Martinique as a slave, and her two children, Adunbi and Abeje, who grow up on a sugar estate. The siblings endure because of the kindness of fellow bondsmen and their uncommon abilities.
-
-
An amazing journey.
- By William on 12-14-20
By: Jenny Jaeckel
-
Isaiah's Daughter
- A Novel of Prophets and Kings
- By: Mesu Andrews
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Nan McNamara
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this epic Biblical narrative, ideal for fans of The Bible miniseries, a young woman taken into the prophet Isaiah's household rises to capture the heart of the future king. Isaiah adopts Ishma, giving her a new name - Zibah, delight of the Lord - thereby ensuring her royal pedigree. Ishma came to the prophet's home, devastated after watching her family destroyed and living as a captive. But as the years pass, Zibah's lively spirit wins Prince Hezekiah's favor, a boy determined to rebuild the kingdom his father has nearly destroyed.
-
-
His Light & Prophecy Shine Through This Story!
- By Gail on 06-27-21
By: Mesu Andrews
-
The Invincible Miss Cust
- A Novel
- By: Penny Haw
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aleen Cust has big dreams. And no one―not her family, society, or the law―will stop her. Born in Ireland in 1868 to an aristocratic English family, Aleen knows she is destined to work with animals, even if her family is appalled by the idea of a woman pursuing a veterinary career. Going against their wishes but with the encouragement of the guardian assigned to her upon her father’s death, Aleen attends the New Veterinary College in Edinburgh, enrolling as A. I. Custance to spare her family the humiliation they fear.
-
-
Unassuming
- By Candace Bank on 04-19-23
By: Penny Haw
-
The Secrets We Left Behind
- By: Soraya M. Lane
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her. Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in.
-
-
Great
- By Auntie JoJo 607 on 12-04-21
By: Soraya M. Lane
-
The Paper Girl of Paris
- By: Jordyn Taylor
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year-old Alice is spending the summer in Paris, but she isn't there for pastries and walks along the Seine. When her grandmother passed away two months ago, she left Alice an apartment in France that no one knew existed. An apartment that has been locked for more than 70 years. Alice is determined to find out why the apartment was abandoned and why her grandmother never once mentioned the family she left behind when she moved to America after World War II. With the help of Paul, a charming Parisian student, she sets out to uncover the truth.
-
-
A new favorite of mine
- By Rachael on 06-23-20
By: Jordyn Taylor
-
One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Hawker
- Narrated by: Jackie Zebrowski
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.
-
-
Mixed review
- By Shari Ring Wolf on 11-05-19
By: Olivia Hawker
-
Night Angels
- A Novel
- By: Weina Dai Randel
- Narrated by: Angela Lin, Jesse Vilinsky, Feodor Chin
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1938. Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Shy and ill at ease with the societal obligations of diplomats’ wives, Grace is an outsider in a city beginning to feel the sweep of the Nazi dragnet. When Grace forms a friendship with her Jewish tutor, Lola Schnitzler, Dr. Ho requests that Grace keep her distance. His instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, and he and Grace are already under their vigilant eye.
-
-
Couldn’t finish
- By Ingrid Olsen-Young on 03-17-23
By: Weina Dai Randel
-
The Fossil Hunter
- By: Tea Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Loughran
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Australia, 1847. The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is sprinting through the bush with a monster at her heels—but no one believes her. In a bid to curb Mellie’s overactive imagination, her benefactors send her to visit a family friend, Anthea Winstanley. Anthea is an amateur paleontologist convinced she will one day find proof that great sea dragons swam in the vast inland sea that covered her property millions of years ago. Mellie is instantly swept up in the dream.
-
-
Another amazing story!
- By Nina on 01-19-23
By: Tea Cooper
-
The Nightingale
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
-
-
HEARTBREAKINGLY POIGNANT AND INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL
- By PatrioticMimi on 02-17-15
By: Kristin Hannah
-
The Things We Cannot Say
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now 15 and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears.
-
-
Don’t Miss This One!
- By Mary Smiroldo on 08-06-19
By: Kelly Rimmer
-
Eternal
- By: Lisa Scottoline
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Edoardo Ballerini, Lisa Scottoline
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart.
-
-
Heartfelt Historic Fiction. A wonderful story !
- By Marie C. Hodge on 03-26-21
By: Lisa Scottoline
-
Code Name Sapphire
- By: Pam Jenoff
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1942. Hannah Martel has narrowly escaped Nazi Germany after her fiancé was killed in a pogrom. When her ship bound for America is turned away at port, she has nowhere to go but to her cousin Lily, who lives with her family in Brussels. Fearful for her life, Hannah is desperate to get out of occupied Europe. But with no safe way to leave, she must return to the dangerous underground work she thought she had left behind.
-
-
Such a disappointment.
- By V. Temple on 03-29-23
By: Pam Jenoff
-
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
- A Novel
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
-
-
The Best Thing? It Really Happened!
- By Chip Atkinson on 08-07-17
By: Mark Sullivan
-
She Gets That from Me
- By: Robin Wells
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer, Abby Craden, Mark Deakins, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Quinn Langston’s her best friend unexpectedly passes away, Quinn knows she'll do anything to protect Brooke’s three-year-old daughter, Lily, and her grandmother Margaret. Not only is Quinn the little girl’s godmother, but they are the family she always wished she had. Now she vows to do whatever it takes to help the three of them heal - even if it means letting a complete stranger into their lives - and into their hearts. Margaret is old-fashioned, and she has no compunction about finding a way to reach Lily’s dad, a sperm donor.
-
-
Too perfect, Irritating narration
- By Admirer of great books; critic of bad books. on 05-22-22
By: Robin Wells
-
All the Light We Cannot See
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Zach Appelman
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
-
-
Afraid to Write a "Less-Than-Positive" Review
- By Elizabeth on 08-06-14
By: Anthony Doerr
Critic reviews
“Gorgeous and lyrical, Exile Music captures the delicate rhythm of one girl's coming of age while driven by war and exile. Heart-wrenching, tender and powerful." (Jean Kwok, New York Times best-selling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee)
“Out of this this little-known corner of history, Steil offers a beautiful meditation on the things we all hold dear - family, friendship, home. My Beautiful Friend meets The Pianist in this elegant symphony of a novel.” (Ruth Gilligan, author of Nine Folds Makes a Paper Swan)
"Jennifer Steil has created a world that is as fierce and stunning as her exquisite language. She dares ask the question where do we belong - and forces the reader to question our own conceptions of what makes a home. Ultimately, this is a story of a woman searching for herself following unimaginable trauma." (Elizabeth L. Silver, author of The Execution of Noa P. Singleton)
Now add to that being Jewish at a time when those not Jewish seek to destroy you. Kill you. Kill all you love.
Still those events of WWII dunt remove the changes happening within your 11 year old body and mind. It only piles on.
This story is beautiful. The author takes this Jewish 11 yo to another part of the world where Jews went to escape the horrors happening in Vienna. In the telling she ages, she loses loved ones, she tries to understand who she is and who she loves. She has to determine for herself the life she will live. Her experiences are limited, restricted, and horrifying at times. But some how the author tells it in an almost melodically, lyrically to the very last note.
Magnificent!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
War of Hearts and Eternity
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As a on of holocaust survivors…
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Absolutely beautiful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
not just another Holocaust book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Pretty good
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a story of hope and heartbreak.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Holocaust story w Austria to Bolivia cultural twists
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautiful sorry, unexpected plot
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.