College Sunrise is a vaguely disreputable finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Rowland Mahler and his wife, Nina, run the school as a way to support themselves while he works, somewhat falteringly, on his novel. Into his creative writing class comes seventeen-year-old Chris Wiley, a literary prodigy whose historical novel-in-progress, on Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of her husband Lord Darnley, has already excited the interest of publishers. The inevitable results are keen envy and a game of cat and mouse not free of sexual jealousy and attraction.

Nobody writing has a keener instinct than Muriel Spark for hypocrisy, self-delusion, and moral ambiguity, or a more deliciously satirical eye. The Finishing School is certain to be another Spark landmark.

Muriel Spark was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and lived in Africa before settling in Tuscany. She served as editor of The Poetry Review and wrote critical biographies of literary figures of the nineteenth century before winning the Observer short-story competition in 1951. She went on to write over twenty novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which was adapted to the stage and screen. She was awarded the OBE in 1993 and is a Dame of the British Empire.