The Confession

Product Information

Spiegelman, Ian (29 August 2014). "Jessie Burton on the dollhouse that inspired her novel". USA Today . Retrieved 29 January 2015. Interestingly, this is the second book in a row I’ve read in which a character goes ‘undercover’ for not-necessarily-nefarious-reasons!) Having waited so long for any information regarding her mother and her past, Rose, quite unwisely, decides to approach Connie under false-pretences and is employed by her. As Rose becomes invested in Connie she finds it more and more difficult to reveal her true motives and identity to the novelist.

One of the main characters in the book, although not one of our narrators, is an author, known for her beautiful poetic and poignant prose… laden with depth and meaning, and Burton effortlessly manages to reflect this. Of course it’s (much) later still we learn both the limit and extent of Connie’s feelings for Elise. Three decades later in London, Rose Simmons is trying to uncover the story of her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was a now reclusive novelist, Rose finds herself at the door of Constance Holden’s house in search of a confession . . . I should also mention I liked the direction Burton takes this story – some of the events could be predictable but they’re not at all; and she stops herself from offering up all of the answers. Something, Connie tells Rose is important, when the younger woman questions the conclusion of Connie’s new book with its non-explicit ending. She doesn’t want to spoon-feed her readers she says, or bash them over the head with it… they need to work it out for themselves. Rose Simmons has always felt the loss of her mother deeply. All her life she wanted to know who Elise Morceau was and through her, wanted to discover herself. Rose, now in her mid thirties is lost in her life, trapped in an unhappy relationship without any children. Her questions about her mother has always been unanswered and she feels that any information about her mother would fill the gap in her life.

The story jumps to 2017, Rosie has never known her mother,as she left when she was a child and was raised by her dad Matt. Matt gives her some books and says that her mother knew the author well. Rosie reads the books and decides to try and find Constance the writer so she can hopefully find out where her mother is. She bizarrely uses a different name and becomes Constance’s assistant. While I enjoyed the story and the writing, the unresolved ending prevented this from being a five star read for me. While Rose says she's moving on, the book ends with her still searching for answers. I hope that's vague enough to avoid any spoilers. This was frustrating and coming so soon after another unresolved ending - in The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean - the frustration was compounded. I need more answers people! In The Confession it is Rose Simmons who approaches the reclusive Constance Holden, an author who vanished from the 'literary' world after publishing her second book decades before. After years of silence, Rose's father has finally told her something 'substantial' about her mother: before Elise Morceau mysteriously disappeared, she was last seen with Connie. In The Confession, Jessie Burton hasn't just captured a myriad of women's experiences but also the intrinsic ambivalence of living in a female body: the advantages, the oppressions. She's built a world of women that is so vivid and absorbing that at one point I paused in my reading to google Connie - and only then remembered that she was a fictional character -- Jean Hannah Edelstein, author of This Really Isn't About You

A desolate novel that intimately explores the ills of fate, decisions, love, friendship, family, ambition and time, The Confession is another beguiling novel from literary sensation Jessie Burton.While Burton resists easy conclusions, calling out the perverse comfort that’s to be had from abandonment and the myriad other ways in which a lover’s hurt can justify shabby behaviour, she does have a weakness for treacly dialogue. “Oh, Rose,” Connie exhales towards the novel’s end, “I always wondered if this day might come.”

The Miniaturist author channels her talent for complex characters and absorbing mysteries into a new story about the connection between three women * Culture Whisper * From the million-copy bestselling author of The Miniaturist and The Muse, The Confession is a luminous, powerful and deeply moving novel about secrets and storytelling, motherhood and friendship, and how we lose and find ourselves. This book was a treat: A well told story with two timelines and wonderfully varied female characters. Rose Simmons has a dead end job and a relationship that's floundering. She's never k own her mother, Elise Morceau s she had disappeared when Rose was just a baby. He father gives her a book and tells Rose that the author knew her mother and might have some knowledge about what had happened to her. Intrigued, Rose secures herself as a companion to the now famous author, Constance Holden. Rose changes her name to "Laura Brown". She is desperate to find answers and she hope that Constance will help her achieve this. Emily Rhodes Jessie Burton’s The Confession is, frankly, a bit heavy-handed By signposting her theme of responsibility so blatantly, she seems to have lost trust in her reader’s ability to read between the linesI imagine this to be a homage to feminist novels of the seventies, although I don't know the subgenre enough to risk naming titles. Still, it is interesting that the decisions we see Rose and her mother take at the end of the novel are still seen as controversial - or very liberating - forty years later.

An irresistible tale of families, deception and the consequences of our choices -- Stacey Halls, author of The Familiars Generalno, ne marim puno za knjige koje su napisane u dvostrukoj vremenskoj liniji. Daleko od toga da to ne može biti dobro napravljeno, ali u pravilu jedna linija bude izuzetno uzbudljiva, a druga u najmanju ruku ne tako izuzetno uzbudljiva. Ta je dihotomija tempa i intenzitetaa često ravna mučenju. Ipak, moram priznati da se u ovoj knjizi taj potez autorice ipak pokazao dobrim, i jako je vješto rukovodila i jednom i drugom linijom. I did find the character of Rose comforting. She's the only thirty-something I've read about who's even more lost and directionless then I've ever felt in my lowest moments as a twenty-something. But she learns to find comfort and meaning in life without letting herself be debilitated by the pressures of society, which I found life-affirming. I took from her that it is ok to just 'be', and even when you feel like you're falling by the wayside you are still learning and growing more than you know. She made a big decision that I found refreshing and touching, with the feelings around it explained thoroughly and realistically. I love a broken cycle, because there's little more frustrating than the same mistakes being repeated both personally and intergenerationally. blogtour Adventure Ancient Egypt Art History Australia Book Blogger Bookliterati Book Recommendation Book review Christmas Contemporary Fiction Crime Del Rey Doubleday Emmeline Kirby and Gregory Longdon Mystery Fantasy Festive Reads Florence Folklore Harper Collins Historical Fiction History Independently Published Italy Karen Swan Literary Fiction Magic Mantle Books Melville House Murder Mystery Myth Orenda Books Pan Macmillan Penguin Random House Psychological thriller Romance Secrets Simon and Schuster Supernatural Suspense thriller Venice Women's Fiction Zaffre Books Book title Search for: Search Search Recent Comments

Elise, naïve, beautiful and somehow half-formed, is the sort of young woman on whom people project their deepest desires, often without even realising they are doing so. “Beauty had come to Elise; they told her it had. She never talked about it, or did anything about it… But there it was. Despite the scrutiny, she still felt invisible until Constance Holden looked at her on Hampstead Heath by the cinnamon trees.”