Shelby Matheson

At the outbreak of World War I, eleven-year-old Elsie Clarke is shipped off to Wales to attend Miss Coleridge’s Academy for Gifted Youths. What at first appears to be an institution for talented academics soon reveals that ‘Gifted’ means something else entirely, and only the mysterious Madam Tryll holds the answers. Only she can open the Gateway to The Place...

Elsie Clarke's home life is turned upside down when a German air raid on London brings the war to her doorstep and her house becomes a temporary refuge shelter for survivors.Further surprises lie in store when she returns for her second year at Miss Coleridge's Academy for Gifted Youths. Elsie is desperate to prove herself as a Guardian but a...