The book starts quite slowly with Louisa narrating and describing her arrival for her first day at boarding school, thanks to a scholarship linked to high exam grades. The writing is very atmospheric and the school environment feels simultaneously very open, few people in sight at any time in rooms largely empty of people, but also claustrophobic, as the alien feel of the building takes over, particularly in the small chapel where the three scholarship girls are confronted with an open coffin of a nun who had died the previous night.
The narration then moves forward to what might be present day and the death and funeral of, what might be, one of the girls from that day, before returning to the time before the school, waiting for the exam marks.
Combined with the blurb for the book, this is all intriguing enough to make me really want to know the rest of this story/stories.
The narration then moves forward to what might be present day and the death and funeral of, what might be, one of the girls from that day, before returning to the time before the school, waiting for the exam marks.
Combined with the blurb for the book, this is all intriguing enough to make me really want to know the rest of this story/stories.