Recently widowed, Phyllis Ellis answers an advertisement requiring a governess in Saudi Arabia for two nieces and a nephew of the King. In a few days she is on her way, and suddenly her life is transformed as she struggles to cope with the total strangeness of her new home. Here she has little freedom of movement; every excursion requires permission and forward planning, and contact with the outside world, including her family, is almost impossible. At the same time she has to establish herself within the royal household and carry out her teaching responsibilities. Phyllis Ellis shares her shock at this stultifying restrictive life with its inevitable frustrations, yet she also learns of the bonds of warmth and affection that unite the Saudi women she meets, the strength of their faith and the positive aspects of kinship. Her informative book provides an exotic glimpse of a very private world.

Volume editor: Gordon Medcalf