This is fun and fabulous 19th century historical fiction. A young Irish girl ends up as a housekeeper in a run-down Scottish mansion. We discover lots of interesting things about her and her mistress. The author develops an intricate plot dotted with great "bit part" characters and weaves amusing and evocative language throughout. The writing has a Dickensian feel with a good measure of Jane Austen thrown in. Extremely enjoyable.

A wonderful novel with an intriguing mystery starring a wonderful pip of an Irish girl, of dubious origins, who comes to be hired as a servant by a beautiful, but strange mistress of the manor. Set in Scotland when the Irish were considered subhuman, and servants barely superior to that. Bessy's humor and language is a delight as she navigates her precarious role in this odd household. I would rank this up there with my current top 3 favorites. My 16-year old daughter consumed it in about one sitting.

The Observations is a hugely assured and darkly funny debut set in nineteenth-century Scotland. Bessy Buckley, the novel’s heroine, is a cynical, wide-eyed, and tender fifteen-year-old Irish girl who takes a job as a maid in a once-grand country house outside Edinburgh, where all is not as it seems. Asked by her employer, the beautiful Arabella, to keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts, Bessy soon makes a troubling discovery and realizes that she has fled her difficult past only to arrive in an even more disturbing present.

A deliriously captivating tale of sex, ghosts, lies, and mysteries. (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

By turns funny and sad, but always true to the ear. And the sprightly, profane Bessy is a joy. (Entertainment Weekly)

It’s a rare feeling to be swept up by a book in the childhood way, but when it happens, it’s extraordinary: deeply familiar and strangely unsettling. (London Review of Books)

The Observations combines the best qualities of literary fiction with page-turning accessibility. (The Observer, London)

Jane Harris’s short stories have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and she has written several award-winning short films.

Imprint: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Distributor: Penguin Group USA, Inc
Publication Date: 06-27-2007
Pages: 416
Measurements: 8.40in X 5.56in X 0.94in X 0.81lb