Piecing together memories from her teen years at an elite English boarding school, Josephine gradually exposes a violent secret explaining why the once-prestigious institution abruptly closed in disgrace.

The girls of St John the Divine, an elite English boarding school, were notorious-- but fiercely loyal, sharp-tongued, and cuttingly humorous in the way that only teenage girls can be. For Josephine, now in her thirties, the years at St John were a lifetime ago. She has not spoken to another Divine in fifteen years, not since the day the school shuttered its doors in disgrace. Her visit provokes blurry recollections of those doomed final weeks that rocked the community. Obsessed with her teenage identity and the forgotten girls of her one-time orbit, Josephine circles closer to the violent secret at the heart of the school's scandal-- unraveling her marriage, career, and her entire sense of self. -- adapted from jacket