Published: 2006
Set just before the outbreak of World War Two, Summer's Ending takes us from colonial Malaya to Scotland, via a brilliantly-portrayed convent school in Southern England.
Shuttled from place to place like parcels, heroines Jean and Maggy constantly find themselves adapting to new surroundings. Not even their natural resilience, however, could have prepared them for the problem of Great Aunt Sophia, who exacts a terrible revenge for a moment of rebellion.
With their sister Christina all but lost to them, Jean and Maggy decide on a daring course of action.
Helen McClelland is well-known in the world of schoolgirl fiction as the biographer of Elinor Brent Dyer and author of the earliest Chalet School fill-in, Visitors for the Chalet School, as well as being an accomplished author in her own right.