The City of Fire

Fourteen-year-old Billy Gaston has one plan for his Saturday: watch a baseball game in the warm glow of Sabbath Valley. But when he lingers at the Pleasant View train station, he overhears something he shouldn't have - a plot involving kidnapping, a freight agent, and a shadowy stranger with dangerous intentions. What begins as innocent curiosity pulls Billy deeper into a web of adult deception, forcing him to make impossible choices about loyalty, courage, and right from wrong. The adventure escalates quickly, and Billy discovers that doing the right thing might mean betraying people who trusted him - or worse, becoming complicit in a crime that could destroy innocent lives. Grace Livingston Hill crafts a gripping tale of a boy's moral awakening, where the innocent world of small-town youth collides with the dark currents of adult ambition and crime. The stakes are real, the tension builds steadily, and Billy must find a kind of bravery that no fourteen-year-old should have to learn.