Evidently, this was a more recent update to the discarded pseudonym experiment, and the 3rd installment of the School by the Sea series.

And it was loads more believable and fun. As always, Ms. Colgan offers an interesting mix of cozy atmosphere and gentle romance, but also touches on more substantial issues like teenage eating disorders and body image pressures, the sorry state of education for those less privileged, and racism and bullying. And somehow pulls it off without turning too grim or maudlin.

I enjoyed this a lot and can hardly wait to find out what happens next to each of the characters! ( )

This book was alright overall, but I found a few continuity errors I couldn't get over.
I could have sworn Maggie had dark hair in the first two books and now it is red or ginger as they say over there. Also, I believe she was 25 and 26 in the first two books and now she is 31. Technology and the internet also took a big leap.
I was curious about these books and now I'm over them. Not sure I'll read the next whenever it comes out. ( )

Lessons at the School by the Sea is the third entry in Jenny Colgan's School by the Sea series.

Now, a lot of times you can read a series book as a standalone, but I highly recommend you go back and read the first two in this series. They're great reads as well - and you'll what lead to the opening pages.

Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite authors. Her characters are warm and welcoming and I always feel like I'm catching up with old friends when I pick up the newest book. This latest opens within a minute of the ending of book two.

Maggie Adair is the English teacher at a girl's boarding school. She's on the train, headed home for her wedding. But....yes, there's a but and the fallout from her decision will affect others as well.

What's unique about this series is that it has myriad plot lines that include Maggie's teen students, the staff, families and more. Their worries, concerns, troubles, joys, successes and more are all relevant and real. I've become quite invested in their lives.

The ending is satisfying, and I love that the door is open for the next entry. Colgan says there will be six books in this series. I'll be waiting! ( )

This is number three in a series about a boarding school in Cornwall, and although I did not read the first two books, it didn’t impair my ability to catch right on and enjoy this one.

Maggie Adair is a 31-year-old English teacher at the all-female Downey House, and 34-year-old David McDonald is an English teacher at Downey Boys, just over the hill. Both are considered to be superlative teachers. The two, very attracted to one another, have been told not to see each other after a “scandal” when David, out of desperation, stopped the train Maggie was leaving on. Ironically, she was leaving not only for summer break, but to marry her fiancé Stan. But when she saw David, on whom she “had a deep, passionate crush” . . . . Maggie’s personal life was in shambles.

Her students aren’t faring so well either, although being 14 didn’t help. Maggie is especially involved with a quartet of girls living together: Alice, Fliss, Simone, and a new scholarship student, Isme. Their physical changes, hormonal spikes, and interactions make for high drama as well as occasional humorous relief.

David, meanwhile, has asked to absent himself from Downey Boys, at least until the “scandal” dies down. He has taken a position at Devon’s Phillip Dean Comprehensive Secondary School - a “normal” school (what Americans would call a public school) - where boys and girls are taught together and some of the kids are considered to be “savage beasts.” It was huge - nearly three thousand students, and sixty-five percent had English as a second language. There was a constant police presence in term time, and the headmaster told David “It’s more of a holding pen than a school really.”

David and Maggie both turn a brave face to the challenges they are given, and try (unsuccessfully of course) not to think of one another. A crisis with the kids, involving a girl at Maggie’s school and a boy who had been David’s form tutee, brings them back together, at least superficially. They need to figure out how they really feel after so much time has gone by, and what they would like to do about it.

Evaluation: While this series is different from the usual Jenny Colgan fare, her creation of compassionate and very human characters, whom she clearly loves, and her talent for contriving humorous and romantic situations, holds up in this book, and presumably series, as well. ( )