Schooled Silence in Bloomington, MN

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SCHOOLED IN SILENCE is the story of three women struggling for their independence and dignity against abuse from the men and society that control them-plus much more. A dramatic, moving novel about eighteen-year-old Mary Ellen Underwood. Motherless, fatherless, and raised in her sisters' whorehouse in Vermont during the early 1800s, Mary Ellen defies all odds when she gets a job as a respectable schoolteacher in upstate New York. Mary Ellen falls in love with the man of her dreams; then, her life changes forever. Reacquainted with a vile, unscrupulous man from her past, Miss Underwood finds her life intertwined with two of her students, Maggie Mae Shepard, a meek, insecure girl with strong traditional beliefs, and Emma Whitman, an outspoken independent spirit. Romance, tragedy, and heartbreak lead these three women on an arduous journey of love, sex, betrayal, violence, and shame- one they may not survive.