Confessions opens with a moment of raw emotion on the fateful morning of September 11, 2001, in New York City. 16-year-old Cora Brady skips school, anxiously awaiting her unreliable drug dealer boyfriend. As she drops an acid tab, she turns on the TV news, plunging into a world that will shatter her life forever.

Now orphaned and utterly untethered, Cora finds herself wandering the streets, which are now papered over with photos of the missing. When a letter from her aunt, Róisín Dooley, arrives, offering a place to stay in her parents’ native home, Cora leaps into the unknown.

The story then shifts to a quiet village in Burtonport, Co Donegal, in 1974, where Róisín and her sister Máire grow up on a farm. With Róisín's passion for reading and writing and Máire’s artistic talent, the sisters invent stories about a mysterious old schoolhouse on the village’s edge. This house will become a sanctuary for women practising scream therapy—the Atlantis Primal Therapy Commune but referred to as the "Screamers" by the locals. When Máire is invited to join them, her life is about to take a thrilling, unanticipated turn.

Fast forward to New York City, where Máire is studying art at NYU. Behind her brave facade, she grapples with profound loneliness, wandering for hours in the rain, her days lost in the quiet hum of diners. A fraying isolation takes hold, and her worldview becomes tainted through its lens.

While Confessions centres on the lives of three generations of women in one family, spanning decades and various historical events, there's a strong focus on societal expectations and oppressions that prevent women from fulfilling their potential. The themes are heavy, but Airey manages them with a deft touch.

The perspectives of these women evoke a deep tenderness as Airey traverses countries and generations, confronting their vulnerability while trying to navigate their lives, which are full of twists and turns. This makes for seriously addictive reading—no mean feat for a book nearly 500 pages long.
 
Confessions is an astonishing read that deserves all the love that's bound to come its way.

Many thanks to the publisher for kindly sending me a review copy. As always, this is an honest review.

This multigenerational story about secrets and belonging is a compelling and intricate debut that kept me engaged as a reader, even when I wanted more on the page. Confessions has been compared to Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, given its intricacy. The video game element reminded me of Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. While the expansive timeline made me think of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Confessions sits at the intersection of commercial and literary fiction, giving it a broad appeal to readers who enjoy the interiority of character studies and propulsive storytelling. Catherine Airey is undoubtedly a writer to watch, yet there are times when Confessions contains one too many coincidences for this reader to be able to suspend her disbelief entirely.

3,5

An engaging and fluently written debut following three generations of Irish women, jumping between New York City and rural County Donegal in Ireland. It's full of young mothers and absent fathers. If there is an overarching theme it's probably abortion, but the plot is central as family secrets are gradually revealed.

I enjoyed it, it felt fresh even if not particularly innovative. I wanted to know how it all fit together. I suspect Booker judges may find it slightly too light for the longlist though.

My confession; I couldn’t connect with this novel.

Cory Brady’s father was killed when the Twin Towers fell. A traumatic experience that leaves her an orphan. However, a letter from an aunt, residing in Ireland arrives and changes Cory’s life.

I feel like a traitor when I see how many readers are raving about this book and the author. It didn’t have the same impact on me. I found it quite repetitive. It possibly brought out my cynicism about life, which is shocking. When did I turn into such a terrible person?

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy from NetGalley to review.

Stories and secrets.

Catherine Airey’s debut novel, Confessions is a propulsive read. Compulsively, I picked it up at every opportunity, eager to discover more about the sibling relationships and family dynamics in this pacy tale spanning three generations and five decades.

With its dual settings of New York and rural Ireland and a plot crafted around women seeking to find themselves and their fulfilment, I sensed echoes of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn, although Confessions is by far the edgier of the two.

The story begins poignantly on the day of the Twin Towers terrorist attack. We meet Cora, then just sixteen, who having already lost her mother, becomes an orphan that day. What follows via an elaborate switching timeline are the stories of Cora, her mother, Máire and her daughter, Lyca, with Cora’s Aunt Róisín’s presence woven inextricably throughout.

Airey inserts a video game motif into the narrative in which two sisters must work out why students at a boarding school are disappearing, and how to prevent it, an allegory to the main storyline. And this is not the only recurring theme in this convincingly atmospheric book which does not shy away from the traumas of manipulation, rape and suicide and their consequences through the generations, or from grappling with issues such as abortion, addiction, mental illness and the heartache of being diminished as an outsider.

The haunting nature of the storytelling is amplified by much of it being fashioned around an old house in Burtonport that has seen more than one mysterious occupant over the decades, and which has a dusty and disquieting attic that hides incendiary memories. Some of the story being told through the contents of letters written by Cora’s father on the 104th floor of the North Tower pre 9/11 adds to the spectral quality of the book.

Confessions is a story born of secrets, but I think it is destined to be a very public success.

I didn't expect it to be so devastating and heavy, and yet it was captivating. The structure and writing was planned thoroughly and heart was poured into the work. Airey really brought readers into her shoes, but it can be hard to read if you are not in the mood for something heavy. Amazing work!

Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

DNF got sucked into this when I was tired as it mentioned set in NYC. But then moves to Ireland and got boring . Good book but not for me.

This is a sweeping and expansive multi-layered debut novel. The story is gripping, with parts of it being very difficult to read. Airey writes in a way that forces the reader to develop real empathy for the characters.

Overall, a very accomplished debut.

*Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A great debut, it was a thoroughly interesting story and it had me hooked. Loved it.

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I commend the author for being so ambitious in their debut and telling a multigenerational tale. However, I believe it suffers because of it. Some of the characters don't have enough space to develop and it often feels like the reader is only catching up on them to experience a traumatic event and then it moves to the next plot point in another time altogether. The story feels like a puzzle we are trying to put together and while the process can be entertaining and grips the reader's attention more times than not, I felt like the final picture wasn't worth all the back and forth.
The main theme I could gather was the importance of bodily autonomy and the right of abortion. While there are intense and emotional moments, there isn't an opportunity to actually experience how the lack of choice impacted the women on this novel. All the children grow up during the gaps of the story and we are only told of what would be more interesting to me to be shown.
I am still curious to read what Catherine Airey will write next and hopeful that I will enjoy more what comes next.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an e-copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a cracking read and the characters really got to me. We follow three generations of one Irish family, not always in chronological order. We meet Maire and her sister Roisin growing up in rural Ireland, their lives intertwined with neighbour Michael and forever shaped by the untimely death of their father. We follow Maire as a teenager navigating life as an art student in New York. Her daughter Cora whose story begins the book is waiting for her father coming home from work in the Twin Towers on 9/11. And Cora's daughter Lyca, who pulls the threads together. Powerful, fascinating, dark, complex characters, this was a treasure trove. #netgalley #confessions

If you love sweeping, multi-generational sagas haunted by secrets, you will eat Catherine Airey's debut novel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Though this isn't my preferred genre, I found myself unable to put Confessions down despite some issues with it. I love stories about New York, am fascinated by 9/11 and its impact on the city, and of course I love stories about Ireland - so lots to love here for me.

The plot follows four generations of women from the same family. In the 1980s, Máire and Róisín are stifled by their rural Donegal upbringing; in 2001, Cora reels from the death of her father in 9/11, and in 2018, Lyca grapples with the inheriated tragedies of her family. There's an awful lot going on in this one; it is complex enough to earn its near-500 page length. Airey's writing is vivid and assured, and the main characters are well-drawn and fascinating in all of their messiness. The pacing is brilliant for much of the book, even across different narrative styles, including second person narrative, a notioursly tricky one for readers (me) to engage with. It's a very creative novel, bursting with originality in style and form even if the plot is not quite the most original.


For the first 75% of the book, I couldn't get enough: I found Cora, Roisin and Maire's stories engrossing and shattering. However in the last quarter, the book faltered for me, failing to bring its many narrative threads together in a way that felt satisfying. It all started to feel a bit mechanical, for me. There's an over-reliance on a specific trope that left me scratching my head, and elements of the political dicussions in the novel faltered for me, too. I am being a bit obtuse to avoid spoilers, obviously. I also thought that Lyca's voice didn't feel distinct enough from the others. After the vivid technicolour of Cora, Roisin and Maire, Lyca felt a bit flat, which was a shame at the end of the novel.

Criticisms aside, this is a seriously good debut novel with beautifully drawn characters and a willingness to play with form that I found exhilirating, rather than preteentious. I will be keeping an eye on Airey in the future, as she could well be the next big thing in literary fiction.

Catherine Airey’s Confessions packs a lot in; there are themes of love, loss, and intergenerational identity. From New York to rural Ireland, the story explores the lives of three women across decades.

The multigenerational aspect of the novel is particularly engrossing. I enjoyed the background into both Cora's mum and aunt and what led to the decisions that were made (without going into too many details to spoil for others). By the end though, I felt that Cora became irrevalant to the story, which was a shame as I would have preferred to keep reading about her since she was the starting point.

Overall, this book kept me engaged, and I lost track of time reading it so that says it all!

Confessions is a compelling debut novel from Catherine Airey. The story follows the lives of three generations of women, and is set between New York and an isolated Irish town. The novel delves into difficult subject matter, including mental health, sexual assault, abortion rights, political exploitation and terrorist activity.

In September 2001, sixteen year old Cora Brady is orphaned when her father is a victim of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Her mother, Maire, had died seven years prior, having taken her own life after long battles with mental illness. Shortly after her father’s demise, she receives a letter from her estranged Aunt Roisin, who offers her a home with her at her house in County Donegal, Ireland.

The tone of the book changes according to each character’s narrative. Each character has a distinct personality each of which has been cleverly described by the author. The book is full of family secrets, which engages the reader form the outset and that interest is maintained as the story unfolds. The way the character’s lives intersect is cleverly woven and skillfully handled.

There are not many negatives to mention, however there a two minor issues that impacted my enjoyment of the book. Firstly, the book is written without a strict timeline. Although each chapter is headed with a date, allowing the reader to piece the story together, it did create some confusion in my mind about time-frames of events. Secondly, some of the characters have different pet names for their family members, requiring some concentration to maintain the plot and story-line.

Overall, I consider the book to be an outstanding effort from a new and upcoming author, and I look forward with much anticipation to future offerings from Catherine Airey.

Set in the US and Ireland, this is a wonderful debut about three generations of women and their lives, loves, and secrets. Airey’s writing is accomplished and she succeeds very well in getting the reader to care for the characters. I liked the structure of this novel, which forces you to keep paying attention, and the focus on women and their personal struggles. Not always an easy read, but a great read nonetheless.
Thank you Penguin UK and Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a sad, but powerful read. It spans several generations following Cora, Maire and Roisin from Ireland to New York and back again, with the final section being about Lyca, Cora's daughter who is trying to unravel her unspoken past.

The book opens with a bang as Cora's father is killed in the 9/11 tragedy, leaving her an orphan as her mother is already dead. Cora wanders aimlessly trying to assimilate the events when a letter from her Aunt Roisin calls her back to Ireland. There is so much in this book which is not spoken and the tightly woven plot slowly unwinds as you read on. Neither Roisin or Maire have had easy lives - and that is comparing them to Cora's heart-breaking situation at the start!

Same sex relationships, abuse (drugs and sexual), reproductive rights are all issues delicately handled and addressed through this novel. I found it a hard read, both emotionally and trying to decode what the characters were not saying to each other. The pace is slow, and the sense of tragedy is fairly relentless throughout as Lyca tries desperately to understand her ancestors.

A deep read, which is well-written, but needed some emotional grit for me to finish it!

This is a superb debut novel, spanning three generations of a family of Irish women. I became fully caught up in their lives, their relationships and the journey the book took me on. The storytelling was captivating, it’s an outstanding debut.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me access to this book
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was sent an advance proof copy of Confessions by Catherine Airey to read and review by NetGalley. While I enjoyed reading about the lives of the characters in this novel I have to admit that I got quite confused at times and the book as a whole seemed rather disjointed in a way. There was one complete section that was told in a totally different style, the reason for which only became clear much later and I’m not convinced that it needed to be written in that particular way. I would have preferred to have read it as a physical book that I could flick back through easily to refresh who people were or where their story had left off, but I find trying to do that impossible on a kindle! I am probably in the minority in feeling that I would rather have the narrative told in a more ‘old skool’ linear way, but having said all that I still feel that Confessions is worthy of 4 stars and worth reading.

The publisher compares "Confessions" by Catherine Airey to "The Goldfinch" - a comparison that might be daunting for any debut novel, given the fear of falling short. While I understand the basis for this comparison, it's important to note that this is NOT Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book. That said, "Confessions" holds its own quite well. Although the story and form are engaging and interesting, "Confessions" lacks Tartt's beautiful language and style.

Sisterly rivalry, relationships between female characters, mental health issues, sexual assault, 9/11, and a deep dive into family history all make for a compelling (though occasionally slightly slow) read. Many readers will likely enjoy the interesting foray into the world of gaming and game design, and I found myself wishing there was more exploration of this aspect.

For much of the book, I anticipated some grandiose "reveal" towards the end, and this expectation kept me turning the pages. Without spoilers, I'll simply say that the storylines come together neatly at the conclusion, leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction. Despite being nearly 500 pages long, I found myself wanting more.

Bottom line: Quite an impressive debut.

With many thanks to the publisher.

When her father is killed in the 9/11 attacks, Cora is left parentless and adrift. Sixteen years old, a school truant and involved with an unsuitable man she takes up the offer to go live with her aunt in rural Ireland. Following the lives of three generations of a family across love, loss and climactic changes, this is a story of hope.
After reading the first section about a computer game I was ready to ditch this book but I'm glad I didn't. The rather pointless computer game sections apart, this is a great read. What I really liked was the fact that certain events in the life of the protagonists was dissected in detail but then other huge changes were not. The story itself filled in the details later and sparsely so there were no gaps in a narrative but it is not sequential. Addressing some huge issues around choice, the story is deep but also written in a heartfelt, but not saccharine, way.