by Soraya Black, Louise | Fiction & related items
Published 03/06/2021 by Muswell Press in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 300 pages
It's 1871 and girls at a progressive new school are being taught to think and speak, to reason clearly; but who will listen? Caroline Hood is finding her feet as a teacher when the liberal ideals of her father clash with the burden of dealing with a disruptive student who develops a mysterious illness that spreads to the other girls. As a doctor arrives to deliver a cure, Caroline finds that the things men leave unsaid hold greater power than their spoken promises. The hopeful creativity and heavy-handed authority that characterise this particular moment in history, education and "medicine" had me gripped. I was quickly engrossed in the storytelling which becomes more urgent and bright with fury as events unfold.