"Without hope, a dream is a wretched curse that only fools endeavor." Mrs. Devlin's son, Roderick, is expelled from the parish's only school, one run by a deliciously wicked Mother Superior. Mrs. Devlin sees his re-admission as both his ticket out of the inevitable village tedium and as proof that she is worthy of...something, finally. She'll stop at nothing to see him schooled, quickly realizing sex and subversion are tools not only the Church can wield with knife-edge precision. "Rory d'Eon writes a sensual tale of a mother's boundless ambition. His lyrical prose captivates as well as compels." Sylvia McNicoll, author of Last Chance for Paris