Confinement by Katharine McMahon (Phoenix, £7.99) (From The Northern Echo)

Confinement by Katharine McMahon (Phoenix, £7.99)

10:44am Tuesday 30th June 2009 in

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IN 1848 Bess Hardemon starts as a teacher at a grim school (think Jane Eyre’s Lowood) and battles benefactors, parents, staff and endless committees to turn it into a success.

She is single-minded, determined and has time for little else in her life.

Meanwhile, in 1967, a bright girl studies at the school, falls in love, marries someone else and comes back to the same school as a teacher.

On the surface she and that revolutionary headmistress seem to have nothing in common at all. And yet...

As well as the intriguing stories of the two women, this book has a wonderful sense of time and history and, overwhelmingly, of the difficult choices women will always have to make.