No Ivory Tower: A Novel (Miss Oliver's School for Girls, 2) - Softcover

Davenport, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1513262025 ISBN 13: 9781513262024

Publisher: West Margin Press, 2019

Synopsis

Set in the backdrop of a prestigious all-girls boarding school, this provocative novel explores the personal lives of those within the school’s small community and the empowerment, strength, and resolve it must find in the face of a surprise adversary.

After a tumultuous transitional year at the prestigious boarding school, Rachel Bickham now leads as the new head of Miss Oliver’s School for Girls, ready to rush in an era of renewal and success. With beloved teacher Francis Plummer by her side, surely she can conquer anything thrown at her, perhaps even finally start a family of her own. But lately Rachel hears nothing about Francis’s classes, once legend among the students... In fact, the praises have been suspiciously absent. In the meantime, financial crisis still looms over the school, and now there are rumors spreading of a big scandal concerning one of the students, Claire Nelson, who is like a daughter to Rachel. To save Claire from expulsion and preserve the school’s reputation, Rachel must come up with a daring plan that may risk everything―her career, marriage, even the special bond with Claire―but it may just save them all.

This is the follow-up to Davenport’s first novel, Saving Miss Oliver’s.

About this title

From the Author:

"Throughout the novel, we are treated to rich descriptions and lovely prose." (George Eckel, Principal Writer, Intuit; former boarding school science teacher and dorm parent)

From the Inside Flap:

ONE Gregory van Buren, teacher of English, was more respected than beloved. His students would no more dare to be one minute late for his class than write different when they meant various, or use annihilate for destroy, and when someone used lay for the act of reclining in the present tense, he would actually lie down on the floor and deliver a lecture about transitive and intransitive verbs. So Gregory's heart sang when Rachel Bickham, his brand-new boss, started the first faculty meeting of the 1992 school year exactly at nine. It sang still more when she paused mid-sentence in her start-of-the-year speech, and gave a look with precisely the right amount of  amazement  in it at the several teachers who straggled in at one minute after. It seemed an eternity before they found their seats and she resumed her sentence. Oh how he did enjoy their discomfiture! This is Miss Oliver's School for Girls! he wanted to shout, not a used car lot. He was also delighted by the way Rachel dressed: in a red silk blouse that set off her brown skin, a silver necklace, a gray skirt and stockings. Stockings! Half the faculty were wearing shorts, some not even socks. Yes, he knew it was still summer - the Monday before Labor Day weekend - and the girls wouldn't arrive until a week from Wednesday, but don't try to convince him that people in sloppy clothes don't do sloppy work. He was wearing his summer-weight blue blazer, the single-breasted one, a tie and fresh pressed khaki trousers. He liked it too that Rachel stood up to make her talk, that she was tall - an asset for a leader- and that she moved her hands through the air as she talked - comely, long-fingered hands, the palms lighter than the rest of her. Please don't say how grateful to have been appointed you are, he thought, and she didn't and his heart lifted still more. Why should she be grateful? It was the other way around. So what if she was only thirty-five?

About this edition

• Publisher: West Margin Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1513262025
• ISBN 13: 9781513262024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338