The Tower Room: The Egerton Hall Novels, Volume One

by Adele Geras

Overview

In a scene that echoes "Rapunzel," Megan looks down from her tower room at a cloistered all-girls boarding school in England and observes the arrival of the new laboratory assistant, Simon Findlay.

As soon as their eyes meet, their love blossoms--and Simon begins to scale the scaffolding into the tower room for clandestine trysts. But when Dorothy, the school's science teacher and Megan's guardian, discovers the young couple's affair, Megan's sheltered world is shattered forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780152055370
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	02/17/2011
Series:	The Egerton Hall Novels , #1
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Adèle Geras is the celebrated author of many books for all ages, including Troy and Ithaka. She lives in Manchester, England.

Editorial Reviews

"The exclusive boarding school setting is vividly evoked, [and the] story has an enduring hold on us. Readers will be moved."—Booklist

"The intriguing story is sure to attract romantic young adults."—The Horn Book Guide

"The new slant on an old fairy tale is engaging."—Publishers Weekly

"Romantics will savor the story."—The Bulletin

From the Publisher

Set in the early 1960s in an English girl's school, Geras's novel--the first of a trilogy--is a loose variation of the Rapunzel story. No evil witch holds Megan captive, however; instead, she and her two best friends choose the privacy of a tower room. Her prince is Simon, a young science teacher who climbs a scaffolding to tryst with Megan. Megan's spinster guardian Dorothy, who has herself developed a romantic attachment to the young man, discovers their secret meetings and expels them both from school. The story, told from the London garret where Megan and Simon are living, ends with Megan cutting her waist-length hair and moving back to school. While the new slant on an old fairy tale is engaging, the message, if any, is not clear. Megan's sexual involvement with a teacher, however young and handsome, may alarm some readers (and parents). Even if later installments in the series help flesh out Megan's decisions, readers may find the lack of a convincing resolution makes this an unsatisfying love story. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 8-12-- Megan Thomas's parents left her in the care of Dorothy Doolittle, headmistress of Sciences at Edgerton Hall, when she was 11, and were subsequently killed in an accident. Now nearly 18 and about to graduate from the protective, regimented world of the boarding school, Megan and her two roommates take their studies and themselves very seriously. When a handsome, young lab assistant, Simon Findlay, arrives at the all-female school, he turns plenty of heads, including his employer's. Megan is lovestruck from the moment she spies him from her window; Simon shares her infatuation and gladly climbs the scaffolding to her tower room for clandestine meetings. The couple runs away together when Dorothy discovers the affair and melodramatically dismisses them both. In the modern twist on the fairy-tale ending, Megan realizes that love does not necessarily conquer all and decides to go back and finish her education. Set in Britain in the 1960s, the rather heavy-handed story unfolds through a series of journal entries, flashbacks, and letters so that the perceptions and personalities are all filtered through Megan's rather naive sensibilities. However, this, the first book of a trilogy about the three friends, should appeal to romance fans.--Luann Toth , School Library Journal

School Library Journal