Sara Faring: St Martin’s Press $20.72 Kindle e-book
TALES of ghostly hauntings are not unheard of in remote boarding schools – but when the facility in question has been abandoned for decades, the first wave of new teachers deployed to its musty classrooms is justifiably skittish.
Perched at the southernmost tip of South America, surrounded by inhospitable mountains and fields of jagged ice and accessible only by water, the ramshackle cluster of buildings is rundown and eerie.
Among those recruited to teach an elite class of 10 handpicked teenage girls is Mavi, the orphaned and destitute daughter of an anti-establishment couple ‘disappeared’ by Argentina’s ruling dictatorship. Mavi’s only ally against disengaged students and disaffected colleagues is Yesi, an aspiring author who spends every non-teaching moment adding to her manuscript.
It’s not long, however, before Mavi also attracts the attention of Domenic, the overly privileged wastrel son of the current principal.
The Vaccaro School was once one of Argentina’s most elite institutions – until its sudden closure ignited speculation that a curse had been cast upon it by the local indigenous Zapuche tribe, condemning it to fail as a business and leading to the outbreak of a fatal virus among its few remaining inhabitants.
Now, against the backdrop of the country’s crippling political turmoil, Carmela De Vaccaro has taken charge, denying outright the existence of all such paranormal phenomena and determined to reclaim her family legacy’s former prestige.
But with inexplicable happenings becoming increasingly evident around her, Mavi quickly starts to suspect there is more than a pinch of truth behind claims that the premises are populated by mysterious beings known as los Otros (the Others).
Told through the eyes of alternate narrators, The Tenth Girl is an up-close chronicle of a chain of psychologically disturbing scenarios unfolding within the confines of an isolated community cut off from the wider world.
TALES of ghostly hauntings are not unheard of in remote boarding schools – but when the facility in question has been abandoned for decades, the first wave of new teachers deployed to its musty classrooms is justifiably skittish.
Perched at the southernmost tip of South America, surrounded by inhospitable mountains and fields of jagged ice and accessible only by water, the ramshackle cluster of buildings is rundown and eerie.
Among those recruited to teach an elite class of 10 handpicked teenage girls is Mavi, the orphaned and destitute daughter of an anti-establishment couple ‘disappeared’ by Argentina’s ruling dictatorship. Mavi’s only ally against disengaged students and disaffected colleagues is Yesi, an aspiring author who spends every non-teaching moment adding to her manuscript.
It’s not long, however, before Mavi also attracts the attention of Domenic, the overly privileged wastrel son of the current principal.
The Vaccaro School was once one of Argentina’s most elite institutions – until its sudden closure ignited speculation that a curse had been cast upon it by the local indigenous Zapuche tribe, condemning it to fail as a business and leading to the outbreak of a fatal virus among its few remaining inhabitants.
Now, against the backdrop of the country’s crippling political turmoil, Carmela De Vaccaro has taken charge, denying outright the existence of all such paranormal phenomena and determined to reclaim her family legacy’s former prestige.
But with inexplicable happenings becoming increasingly evident around her, Mavi quickly starts to suspect there is more than a pinch of truth behind claims that the premises are populated by mysterious beings known as los Otros (the Others).
Told through the eyes of alternate narrators, The Tenth Girl is an up-close chronicle of a chain of psychologically disturbing scenarios unfolding within the confines of an isolated community cut off from the wider world.
