Miss Timmins' School for Girls

Miss Timmins' School for Girls

Nayana Currimbhoy

It's 1974. Charu has just been hired to teach at Miss Timmins' School for Girls. She is a first-time teacher, nearly as young and impressionable as her students.

Moira Prince also teaches at Miss Timmins'. She is unorthodox, a bit older, worldly, and troubled. Miss Prince, nicknamed Pin, has a mysterious connection with the school's director, and seems to have cast a spell on Charu, who becomes deeply involved with her and the group of bohemians who are her friends.

One night, Pin seems especially disturbed. she is found dead at the foot of a cliff, under a rock formation known as The Needle.

The police determine that she was pushed, leaving many questions about her death.

That night, there were many others up on The Tablelands, near The Needle, including Charu. Each has their own secrets, and each is a possible murderer.

I loved this book! Currimbhoy is very talented, especially when it comes to speaking in a character's voice, and for description.

This book drew me in immediately. The back stories of the characters, and their distinct voices made them seem almost real. The setting was magical...a Hogwarts for girls in one of th4 most fascinating, exotic locations with fantastic rock formations and a cave/den of illegal activity, all set in an Indian hill station.

This was Currimbhoy's first novel. I hope and expect to see much more of her. I definitely think she is a rising literary star.

If I noticed any flaw, it was that the plot's resolution was a bit weak...signalled too strongly and too early. Everything else, though, more than made up for that. It's possible I felt that way about the ending because I finished the book after a night without any sleep. Flawed or not, I loved this book, and as this was the author's first novel, the author's writing will be even stronger in the future.