Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall

The story opens in Bitumen, a small mining town where Elizabeth Hobart has grown up surrounded by coal dust and the rumble of industry. When she's sent to Exeter Hall, a prestigious boarding school, she carries with her both excitement and dread. This is her passage into a world of refinement she's only imagined, among girls who speak with different accents and wear different clothes. But Elizabeth refuses to be intimidated. Within days of arriving, she's organizing midnight spreads under the preceptress's nose, championing a classmate facing social exile, and plotting bold rebellion against the Senior class's rigid program. Her spirit is indomitable. What follows is a vivid portrait of a girl learning to hold her own in a world that expects her to shrink, discovering that courage sometimes looks like staying up too late with friends, and that the best sort of leadership means standing up for those who have been pushed aside.