Raji Series

Rajiani Devaki (Raji) is a girl of 13 from India. On a cold December morning in 1925, Vincent Fusilier (Fuse) finds Raji sleeping in his parents' barn. He thinks she's a vagrant and tells her she has to go. She doesn't understand English and doesn't know where she is, having recently escaped from a house in Queens, New York, where she had been held for the past nine years as an indentured servant.

Raji is accepted to the prestigious Octavia Pompeii Academy. She and Elizabeth Keesler are the only girls in the student body of one hundred cadets. They must endure the derision and taunts from 98 boys who would like nothing better than to see the girls out of school. In addition to the contempt of the male students and the high academic standards set by the instructors, they must also conform to the strict disciplinary code enforced by the indomitable Elvira Gulch, Director of Development.

October 1932. At the beginning of the Great Depression, schools and universities all over America were cutting back, and even closing their campuses. Raji and Fuse, like so many other young people, were to be cut adrift. Having concentrated on nothing but academics for the past four years, they weren’t prepared for the brutal economic realities of a world sinking into misery and hopelessness.