Jenny Baily, her sisters and her friends all return to Balcombe Hall for another term in this sequel to Jenny and the Syndicate. Here they find themselves in conflict with the new assistant headmistress, Miss Vaux - nicknamed "The Sphinx" - who is deeply unpleasant, and often unfair. Jenny is assigned to be Caroline Vaux's 'sheepdog' (guide) in her first days at school, but neglects her charge, both because she doesn't like Caroline's mother, and because she is more concerned with Jamie, the spaniel she had smuggled onto school grounds. Sylvia and her friends in the Syndicate, in the meantime, get into open conflict with Miss Vaux, and although Miss Hamilton, the wise mistress from the first book, helps to smooth things over, tensions remain. The book closes with the kidnapping of Ariel, daughter of one of Britain's most famous actresses, and Sylvia's brave actions in attempting to rescue her. All ends well, of course, and it is revealed that Miss Hamilton is to be the new headmistress, rather than Miss Vaux...

The second of three novels in the Balcombe Hall trilogy - begun in Jenny and the Syndicate, continued here, and concluded in Jenny and the New Girls - Jenny and the New Headmistress is an engaging example of the girls' school story genre. Most of the narrative developments here - the puppy smuggled into school, the unhappy new girl, the schoolgirl rebellion against an unpopular teacher - are well established in this kind of story, although Harriet Martyn (a pseudonym of Lady Sarah Collins) uses them to spin an entertaining tale. It's more unusual to have a truly unpleasant and unjust authority figure, as Miss Vaux reveals herself to be at times. Her actions, in punishing the entire form in order to force Sylvia to admit to a transgression she had not committed, feel both manipulative and harsh. Sylvia's response to Miss Vaux's idea of a marching competition for the girls - she compares it to the Hitler Youth - is a pointed commentary in this regard. I'm not sure if the author meant to create that impression, exactly - I suspect Miss Hamilton's intercession is meant to demonstrate that authority is indeed just, in the end - but it was still quite interesting. Recommended to anyone who has read and enjoyed Jenny and the Syndicate, if they can track it down, of course. ( )