Year of the Tiger

The story begins in 1497, with the marriage and death on the same day of Jeffrey Thurston; dead by the hand of his wife. Following that, the story moves on almost 450 years, briefly to China and then to a girls boarding school in northern England just after the Second World War. The story involves one of the older girls in the school and a male teacher who was blinded in that war. He has been reluctantly taken on to fulfill a condition that ensures the continuation of a generous grant to the school. There are several forces at work to see him gone as quickly as possible while others intend to keep him there. The school has a friendly but desperate presence which recognizes the first opportunity in more than four hundred years, to break a curse that has come close to destroying two families. To break it requires that the older girl and that male teacher must cooperate to understand each other and to fulfill certain emotionally challenging conditions concerning how it is to be undone. The impossible became possible only when heand he alonewalked through the door into that particular school. He must not be allowed to leave until all of the requirements had been fulfilled. A frustrated entity and a determined young woman eventually overwhelm his reservations about what is required. These individual threads slowly and inevitably intertwine and lead into an intriguing tale of mystery, outspoken honesty, and tender scenes of love as the curse is lifted.