Today I am lucky enough to be on the blog tour with a review for the amazing new novel by Jo Spain called The Confession. It’s a corker! Read on to see what I thought, and make sure you follow the rest of the blog tour as well!

Title: The Confession
Author: Jo Spain
Publisher: Quercus

[Synopsis]

Late one night a man walks into the luxurious home of disgraced banker Harry McNamara and his wife Julie. The man launches an unspeakably brutal attack on Harry as a horror-struck Julie watches, frozen by fear.
Just an hour later the attacker, JP Carney, has handed himself in to the police. He confesses to beating Harry to death, but JP claims that the assault was not premeditated and that he didn’t know the identity of his victim. With a man as notorious as Harry McNamara, the detectives cannot help wondering, was this really a random act of violence or is it linked to one of Harry’s many sins: corruption, greed, betrayal?
This gripping psychological thriller will have you questioning, who – of Harry, Julie and JP – is really the guilty one? And is Carney’s surrender driven by a guilty conscience or is his confession a calculated move in a deadly game?

[My Review]

If you value your sleep, beware… The Confession is very likely to keep you up all night thinking “just one more page”. I couldn’t put it down! However this will be a no-spoiler review, so don’t worry ????
Though there are many books with a similar theme, The Confession feels a little different because you know who has attacked Harry from very near the beginning of the novel, but you don’t know why – and why he handed himself in. The plot has lots of gripping narratives, each from a different point of view. We hear from Julie, whose husband Harry is the man who is violently attacked at the start of the novel, and JP, who handed himself in and is proved to be the man who attacked Harry. We also, interestingly, hear from Alice, a detective who will do anything to find out why JP attacked Harry. Can it just be coincidence or is there far more to this story? I think you know the likely answer! This novel slowly teases the reader with snippets of the three characters’ lives, both the present day and the events leading up to the day of the attack. This means I was absolutely desperate to find out what had happened.
There are plenty of twists, turns and surprises along the way, and I found myself doubting almost every character at some point (my favourite kind of novel!). I loved Alice – she was a great character who I really warmed to , and would love to see her featured in future books – but also couldn’t help myself really liking JP from quite early on, despite what he’d done. The characters in The Confession are multi-layered and never portrayed as strictly ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – they have different issues and/or quirks which make them convincing characters, and even the people you know are horrible people are not horrible 100% of the time! It also shows how the images that people portray can be very different behind closed doors…
The Confession is clever, gripping and deliciously dark, with characters you can’t help but want to know more about – highly recommended. Will definitely be reading anything Jo Spain releases in the future, and am determined to read her Inspector Tom Reynolds series as well!

[Rating: 5/5]

Many thanks to Quercus and Anne Cater for providing an ARC of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review, and for my place on the blog tour!
The Confession is out now in ebook format and out in paperback on the 25 January!

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