Gillespie and I [Hardcover]

`An absolute belter.' --Bidisha, Saturday Review



`In Gillespie and I, Harris has pulled off the only too rare double whammy - a Booker-worthy novel that I want to read again.' --Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times



`A compelling, suspenseful and highly enjoyable novel -- but what stands out is the way in which this narrative provokes us to think again about what we imagine, and what we hope for.' --John Burnside, The Times



`Harris writes with a gorgeous delicacy and wit, and the richness of her vocabulary makes one aware of how impoverished that of many modern novelists is.' --Amanda Craig, Literary Review



`A chilling tale reminiscent of both Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher and Julian Barnes's Arthur and George.'
--Suzi Feay, Financial Times

--John Burnside, The Times

'Brilliantly plotted.' --Sunday Times

"To say anything more would be to give away the plot, which is too delectable to spoil."--Washington Post

Gillespie and I is the eagerly awaited second novel by Jane Harris, author of the hugely acclaimed The Observations

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. But when tragedy strikes - leading to a notorious criminal trial - the promise and certainties of this world all too rapidly disorientate into mystery and deception.

Featuring a memorable cast of characters, infused with atmosphere and period detail, and shot through with wicked humour, Gillespie and I is a tour de force from one of the emerging names of British fiction.

Jane Harris was born in Belfast and brought up in Glasgow. In 2007, she was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Waterstone's Newcomer of the Year and the South Bank Show Times Breakthrough Award. Her debut novel, The Observations, was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. She lives in London with her husband Tom.