Justin Stokes would never forget the summer she turned fourteen, nor the woman who transformed her bleak adolescent life into a wondrous place of brilliant color. In the little pondside hut she called her "finishing school", eccentric, free-spirited Ursula DeVane opened up a world of love and loyalty, encouraging her to change, to learn, to grow. But the lessons of the finishing school have their dark side as well, and Justin learns how friendship can be shattered by shocking, unforgivable betrayal.