Review and Giveaway: Miss Timmins’ School for Girls

Miss Timmins’ School for Girls

Author: Nayana Currimbhoy

Paperback: 512 pages (also available in Kindle format)

Publisher: Harper (June 21, 2011)

Synposis: In 1974 shy Charulata Apte moves away from home for the first time to teach at a boarding school in Panchgani. Chara is marked in many ways: most obviously by the birthmark on her face, but also by the mysterious scandal that surrounds her family, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to fit in the culture of the rich Indian girls she teaches or the school’s teachers who assume everything British is always superior.

Chara finally finds an unlike group made up of both teachers and locals to join. She find success as a teacher and in her love life. But her new life is destroyed in one night when a body is found at the bottom of the cliff and the finger of guilt points at Chara. Can Chara or a bumbling trio of her students find the true identity of the murderer?

Review:

I love books that take me into new worlds and Miss Timmins’ School for Girls does that many times: the world of India, the world of boarding school, the world of “hippies” all exist next to each other (sometimes very uncomfortably) in this novel. That was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book…seeing the different worlds co-existing awkwardly and Chara’s attempts to live in two opposing worlds at the same time, switching from one personality to the next as she moved from one world to the next. And then the jarring crash when all the worlds meet on one stormy night during monsoon season.

The book’s mystery was a satisfying puzzle. Each possible suspect seemed so unlikely that I was certain an alternate solution…suicide, accident, an unknown suspect…would pop up at the end. But what popped up were all the secrets the characters were hiding behind their oh-so-proper veneers. Although the book is told mostly from Chara’s point of view, for a time we see the murder and surrounding events through the eyes of three students attempting to solve the mystery. It added an interested slant, not just to the mystery, but to the entire book as you get to see the world from through the eyes of these wealthy Indian girls.

I’d recommend this as an addition to your summer reading list.

Thanks to Nayana’s publisher I’m giving away a copy of Miss Timmins’ School for Girls on Thursday. I’ll also be giving everyone a peek at the author with a quick 5Ws with Nayana Currimbhoy. Don’t miss it! To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is be a follower and leave a comment on Thursday’s post. US addresses only.