Miss Timmins' School for Girls
A Novel
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3.3 • 20 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“An irresistible novel that hurls forward at breathtaking speed toward an unpredictable climax.”
—Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us
“Beautifully written, atmospheric…contains entire worlds. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Gary Shteyngart, bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan
Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is the truly dazzling debut of a major novelist, Nayana Currimbhoy. Set in India during the monsoon of 1974, it tells the story of a conventional young girl who leaves her cloistered small town home to teach at a remote boarding school run by British Missionaries. Part coming-of-age novel, part suspenseful murder mystery, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is a brilliant evocation of a colorful time and place—India during the love, drug, and rock ’n’ roll era—complete with the sights, sounds, and music of the period seamlessly woven into the page-turning tale.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Currimbhoy's fiction debut is an absorbing atmospheric thriller set at a girl's boarding school in Panchgani, India. In 1974, Charu Apte is an impressionable 21-year-old new to teaching. Instead of conforming to the school's strict religious guidelines, she finds herself drawn to a fellow teacher, and renegade, Moira Prince, a larger than life British woman with plenty of secrets and a puzzling relationship with the school's administration. Charu and Moira begin a passionate affair, but one night during monsoon season, in a mountainous outlying area known as "table-land," Moira is murdered. The tragedy divides the town along an "English fault line" and fills the school with rumors of burning jealousy, salacious lesbian affairs, and vendettas. As arrests are made, Charu and some of the schoolgirls work to get to the bottom of what happened. Almost everyone is a suspect, including Charu, in Currimbhoy's gripping tale.
Customer Reviews
Miss Timmins School for Girls
I was intrigued by this book based on the synopsis and teaser on the back cover, but in reality the book described was not delivered. It is a shame because the plot had promise. A young Indian teacher arrives at a boarding school, falls in love, the love interest dies and there are lots of potential who-done-it's with interesting back stories. It should have been a good murder mystery set in a boarding school backdrop, but in reality the book reads really slowly and is a slog to get through. For some reason, I didn't find the characters compelling enough to care what happened to them one way or another. I love to read but really found this pretty uninteresting. In my book club of 10 avid readers, only one of us managed to finish it. Sorry to be a downer on a first time writer, but I did not enjoy this book. Better luck next time