THE CONFESSION

Jessie Burton’s debut novel The

Miniaturist was an international knockout bestseller – set in the 17th century. For her third novel, The

Confession, she has moved her attention to north London for a period spanning the 1980s to today. Twenty-year-old Elise is mooching around Hampstead Heath in 1980 and catches the attention of a handsome charismatic older writer called Constance with whom she begins a tantalising relationship. Hepzibah Anderson in the Guardian described it thus: ‘Writer that she is, Connie guards a private core, one that’s as unreachable as the study in her elegant home is unbreachable. Furthermore, Elise’s ardour is spiked with envy; she longs to have work of her own that matters, to become a woman of substance rather than a part-time waitress-cum-usher-cumlife model.’

In the Evening Standard, Susannah Butter found ‘a riveting story that will keep you guessing until the end’ and ‘an intelligent investigation into relationships and their psychological impact’. Only Melissa Katsoulis in the Times was left not entirely convinced: ‘ The

Confession might be quite devastating if it weren’t for its fatal flaw: the main characters are as flimsy and bloodless as extras in a movie. Connie should be a magnetic beauty for us to fall in love with; Elise an enigmatic muse … but it’s as if Burton is too entranced with the theoretical idea of her protagonists to actually work on making them real.’