My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Summary: Jane Milton—divorced and deeply in debt—has reluctantly returned to the remote boarding school of her youth, this time to teach, but the long-buried secrets of her past will not be easy to escape.
During their senior year, Jane and her friends Kat and Lissa obsessed over their English teacher, Miss Pymstead, convinced of her involvement in an unsolved murder. As the obsession escalated, it took a tragic turn. The only record of their misdeeds was a secret manuscript that disappeared without a trace—until the story resurfaces in an assignment turned in by Jane’s least favorite student.
Jane scrambles to unravel the mysteries, but can she keep her own secrets buried as she unearths even darker, long-hidden truths?
I quite enjoyed this one. A strong 4.5 for a few quibbles but overall, this book kept me invested and tapping compulsively at the screen to get to the next page. Jane was interesting to follow on her journey of reliving her past at the Grove Academy. I was completely caught up in what had happened to Kat, Ms. Pymstead and the golden informative and incriminating manuscript in the past & what was going on in the present that resurrected it all. It was a bit difficult to buy into the Josh thread in the present but it wasn't too dwelt on to detract from the piece overall. I did a lot of speaking out loud to characters as I read & I took that as a good sign of my investment and involvement. I won't give up the answers to the many mysteries that unfurl here but I will say that I thought Lissa would have played a larger part in the present and also that I was amazed how blank Charlie was as a character overall. I never felt I got to know him or understand Jane's relationship with him and the very thing that is mentioned in the summary that lands them at Grove is so little a driver to the plot as to be simply this thing that is mentioned periodically to remind Jane & the reader that she's really in dire straits. Still, this was a very well done story and there were many instances of prose that were rendered so well that I highlit quite a few. This one will linger in my mind and while this was my first reading of Nora Carroll, it certainly won't be my last. A pleasure.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Available September 15, 2015
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