GENRE: Historical Fiction
SETTING: Scotland, 1863
MY GRADE: B
SYNOPSIS: Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley - the wide-eyed Irish 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 come to hold dear. Caught up in a tangle of madness, ghosts, sex, and lies, she remains devoted to Arabella. But who is really responsible for what happened to her predecessor Nora? As her past threatens to catch up with her and complicate matters even further, Bessy begins to realize that she has not quite landed on her feet.
MY THOUGHTS: This was strange and interesting but led nowhere, really. Though I liked it, I wouldn't recommend it. It was pretty slow-moving. Timespan is 3 years. Bessy finds employment within Arabella's household. She then finds that former maid Nora died while working there, found dead on the railroad tracks. We're left wondering if it was murder or suicide. The ending, learning what really happened to Nora, was a gigantic disappointment. I didn't see much point in Bessy's mother being in the story physically either. We learn something really foul that happened with mother and daughter a few years before that made me cringe.
The title comes from a journal Bessy finds in Arabella's drawer. Arabella's keeping notes on some in her employ and plans to write a book. She wants Bessy to keep a journal too but nothing ever comes of the planned book. I also don't understand how seemingly out of nowhere Arabella loses her mind near the end of the story. Arabella's a very peculiar person and we got no background information on her.
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