As she sits in her Bloomsbury home, with her two birds for company, elderly Harriet Baxter sets out to relate the story of her acquaintance, nearly four decades previously, with Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who never achieved the fame she maintains he deserved.Back in 1888, the young, art-loving, Harriet arrives in Glasgow at the time of the International Exhibition. After a chance encounter she befriends the Gillespie family and soon becomes a fixture in all of their lives. Bu...

'Vastly original. Bessy is surely one of the most striking characters in recent fiction: cynical, disruptive, tender and very, very funny.' Independent on SundayShortlisted for the Orange PrizeScotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her past, Bessy Buckley takes a job working as a maid in a big country house. But when Arabella, her beautiful mistress, asks her to undertake a series of bizarre tasks, Bessy begins to realise that she...

What if the real key to productivity isn't doing more-but doing less on purpose?Discipline by Subtraction: The Art of Strategic Laziness is a provocative manifesto for anyone drowning in overload, addicted to optimization, or caught in institutional inertia. Drawing from two decades in combat zones, diplomatic trenches, and federal bureaucracy, James Snoddy delivers a field-tested doctrine for reclaiming time, clarity, and agency.Rejecting the cult of hustle and th...

What do you do when everything in you knows it’s time to go — but fear is making a very convincing case for staying? Called Forward is for anyone standing at the edge of a life-changing decision. The person lying awake at 3am running the same loop. The one who has outgrown their career, their relationship, or the version of themselves that everyone around them has already decided they are. The one who keeps hearing God’s quiet, persistent whisper — and keeps talking themselves out of trust...

Worried about your placement? Will you fit in? Will you have the right skills? What do you need to learn for practice assessments? This book will help you with all these concerns. It will tell you what to expect from the placement, what you can learn, how to link theory and practice, and how to make the most of your learning opportunities. - A logical, step-by-step approach to preparing for a medical placement - Helps make the most of learning opportunities - Narratives from other students...

Finding Home in the Promised Land is the fruit of Jane Harris’ journey through the wilderness of social exile after a violent crime left her injured and tumbling down the social ladder toward homelessness — for the second time in her life — in 2013. Her Scottish great-great grandmother Barbara’s portrait opens the door into pre-Confederation Canada. Her own story lights our journey through 21st Century Canada.She asks why Canadians fell into accepting diminished dreams, an...

Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her past, Bessy Buckley 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 childis...

Sitting in her Bloomsbury home, with her two birds for company, elderly Harriet Baxter sets out to relate the story of her acquaintance with Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who never achieved the fame he deserved. Back in 1888, after a chance encounter, young Harriet befriends the Gillespie family and soon becomes a fixture in all of their lives. But when tragedy strikes, the certainties of this world all too rapidly disorientate into mystery and deception.Featuring a memorable ca...

Martinique, 1765: Brothers Emile and Lucien are charged by their French master, Father Cleophas, with a mission. They must return to Grenada, the island they once called home, and smuggle back the 42 slaves claimed by English invaders at the hospital plantation in Fort Royal. While Lucien, barely in his teens, sees the trip as a great adventure, the older and worldlier Emile has no illusions about the dangers they will face. But with no choice other than to obey Cleophas, and sensing the p...

Full-cast adaptations of two of Jane Harris’s gripping novels - plus an interview with the authorListen now to these two stunning, suspenseful historical dramas, performed by a full cast and based on the novels by best-selling author, Jane Harris.The Observations transports listeners to Scotland, 1863. A young Irish girl, Bessy Buckley, escapes her former life as a prostitute when she's hired as a maid in a big house near Edinburgh...

Every heart holds a secret...But some secrets are better left buried.When seventeen-year old Phoebe Turner visits Wilton's Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage, she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army, campaigning for all London theatres to close. While there, Phoebe is drawn to a stranger, the enigmatic Nathaniel Samuels.When offered the position of companion t...

Brought to you by Penguin.The new book from the Orwell Prize-Winning author of Poverty Safari and The Social Distance Between UsToday, trauma permeates media, from music and television to films and books – my own included. While the increasing openness is welcome, I’ve observed that this rise has been accompanied by a parallel explosion of disinformation and sometimes harmful guidance about how to deal with personal trauma...