L.D. Inman is an essayist, lay preacher, habitual lurker on fannish social media, and sometime poet, who once stole V.S. Naipaul’s hat (she gave it back, though in retrospect perhaps she shouldn’t have) and answered a stunning variety of reference questions in a long and checkered library career, before going into nonprofit communications and marketing. She lives, works, fences, and serves as cat staff in Kansas City.
Spring has come to Ryswyck Academy, and everyone has adjustments to make in the wake of the previous winter’s cataclysmic events. Speir seeks insight for her fears and relief for Douglas’s exhausting labors amid a fragile armistice.
In a world scarred by nuclear holocaust, a military academy has been turning out brilliant officers whose fighting skill is exceeded only by devotion to the law of courtesy. Then two of its students uncover a secret that has haunted its founder for twenty years. As scandal threatens Ryswyck Academy, their friendship becomes the linchpin of a perilous solution to their country’s desperate struggle.