She then begins to imagine that Nora is still alive and the victim of a dastardly plot. Even after Bessy reveals her deception, Arabella is troubled by a guilty fear of spiritual retribution. Feeling betrayed by her employer, the rebellious young Bessy sets about stage-managing a series of cod-hauntings that leave Arabella convinced that she is pursued by the ghost of Nora. Arabella also nurtures an obsession with the fate of her former maid, Nora, who died in mysterious circumstances. Bessy is requested to perform a series of bewildering tasks, but quickly becomes entranced by the eccentric and engaging Arabella.īessy is asked to keep a journal recording events and feelings, and eventually discovers that this is to provide research material for Arabella's own treatise, The Observations: a study of the habits and character of the serving classes.

She drifts into a job as maid to Arabella Reid, the mistress of an estate outside Edinburgh. Set in 1863, The Observations is narrated by Bessy Buckley, a 15-year-old on the run from a dubious past in Glasgow. The book's size, its young criminal female narrator, its use of cross-class deceit and Wilkie Collins-influenced layering of plot twists may conveniently categorise it, but Harris's voice is an original one, and her rollicking yet delicate narrative pitch sets the book apart. In the case of The Observations, though, the comparisons with Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, and especially with Waters's Fingersmith, are inevitable but misleading. Victorian pastiche licenses an appetite for melodrama by adding historical depth to complex and often overblown plots, resulting in a classy package that taps into the need for both substance and story.

The Observations by Jane Harris