The Observations

So there I was with two pens, my two titties, Charles Dickens, two slices of bread and a blank book at the end o f my first day in the middle o f nowhere. Except as it turned out it wasn't quite the end... Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley - the wide-eyed heroine of The Observations - takes a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella. Bessy is intrigued by her new employer, but puzzled by her increasingly strange requests and her insistence that Bessy keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts. And it seems that Arabella has a few secrets of her own - including her near- obsessive affection for Nora, a former maid who died in mysterious circumstances. Then a childish prank has drastic consequences which throw into jeopardy all that : Bessy has tome to hold dear. Caught up in a tangle of madness, ghosts, sex and lies, she is determined to remain devoted to Arabella. As her past threatens to catch up with her and complicate matters even further, Bessy begins to realise that she has not quite landed on her feet. The Observations is a brilliantly original and infinitely intriguing account of one woman's journey from a difficult past into an even more disturbing present. It is certain to establish Jane Harris as a significant new literary talent.