The Tower Room: The Egerton Hall Novels, Volume One
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.\ \ \...
Search in google:
From the author of Troy, the books in the Egerton Hall Trilogy—back with a fresh new look!Publishers WeeklySet 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\ 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.)\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalGr 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\ \
