Isla Brodie's Nerve

About this book

In an Edinburgh where you can pawn your patience, your singing voice or your nerve, twenty-one-year-old Effie Laing keeps the last soft-trade shop on Leith Walk running almost single-handed. She can feel the worth of a pledge through glass better than any licensed broker, but she has failed the Board's examination twice, and the written paper is still waiting for her. When her employer collapses at the counter, his nephew moves to sell everything to a polished chain that resells other people's courage. Then, in a locked kist in the back room, Effie finds a jar that should have been sold twenty-five years ago: Pledge 4471, nerve, female, 22, Isla Brodie. Somewhere in 1999, a young woman from Lewis wrote home about a reckless year and the reason she gave her nerve away. To protect it, Effie must pass the hardest test of her life. Who was Isla Brodie, and what will it cost to give it back?