Cora lost her mother years ago, she began to spiral a bit in her life, and at the age of 16 she loses her father in the devastation of 9/11. Now orphaned she is trying to survive and not get found out. Then she gets a letter from an aunt, her mother's sister that she had no idea existed. She packs up for Ireland, and the only thing she leaves is missing posters of her father in all their favourite places.

We explore a multi-generational story of 3 woman through their stories, the choices they make, and the trumas they carry.

The writing in this book was exactly what I wanted. For this to be a debut is wild, the author took on such a challenge writing a coherent story in many timelines, and give every characters' story justice. The journey the reader takes through love, loss, grief, and family secrets keeps the reader engaged from the first page. My one gripe is that the story and the relationship between some characters tied up to well up into a bow, and connected in a very convenient way that felt unnecessary. Over all an absolute stunning, powerful, and emotional read I will think about for a while.

Such a great exploration of different generations and families. This book was incredibly well written, and the story had me so engaged – each of the characters were well rounded and real that I didn’t want each of the different written eras to end.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

Cora Brady’s is missing. It is September 2001 and its the day of the Twin Towers disaster. She puts up posters asking if anyone has seen him but nothing. She is now all alone as her mother died years before. A letter arrives from an aunt offering her a new start.
She accepts but starts to find out a lot about her family.

I was a bit unsure going into this book, mainly due to it not really being my genre and also as it is considerably longer than most books I read. But, and this is important, I trusted the person who recommended it to me and, I guess, I am now hoping that you trust me too...
We start in New York City in 2001 and we all know the big thing that happened there that year. One of the missing is 16 year old Cora Brady's father. Her only remaining parent as we learn that her mother died when she was a young child. Soon after this event which rocked her life, she receives a letter from an Aunt back in Ireland...
Then we switch to County Donegal in 1974 and follow sisters Moira and Roisin as they grow up next door to Michael. We watch as Moira blooms as an artist and how she eventually joins the Screamers...
Finally we switch to Burtonport in 2018 and follow Lyca Brady as she lives with mother Cora and great aunt Ro(isin)...
And that's more than enough for you to go in with. How the lives of these, obviously related, women affect each other, and intertwine, is for you to discover exactly as the author intends. Suffice to say, and I am not usually a fan of family sagas, it held me rapt all the way through and, by the end, I was actually rather sad to have to leave the people who I had got close to during my time with them. Who I had laughed with, and at! Who I cried with, shouted at. Who I actually got a bit over-involved with. Who I had started to call friends. But then that's what you need from a character driven book!
And boy did they put me through some emotions all the way through, spitting me out at the end exhausted, spent, but wholly satisfied.
And then, when I finished, I found out that this is a debut. No Blooming Way. Absolutely not. It reads as a completely established author. It's bold and confident and, well, brilliant. And I am so glad I had someone point me to it and, I hope, maybe I have pointed, even just one person, to it with this review.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

A really interesting and engaging debut, brimming with potential. There were so many interesting themes of family, intergenerational trauma and women's rights. The sisters were fascinating, complex characters that I would liked to stay with for even longer. However, I did feel that the plot of the book was prioritised over the characterisation. I wish there weren't so many different plotlines crammed in and we could have had more in-depth studies on a select few as it became hard to feel invested in the final outcome when the timelines and plot flitted around so much.

Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. Enjoyed the beginning and particularly like the letter section towards the end but the rest didn’t hold my attention. Didn’t really warm to any of the characters and not able to work out the significance of Sanjeet.

This book was definitely not what I expected and I am still gathering my thoughts on it, but I know one thing, it will stay with me for a very long time. This book is at times heart-breaking and devastating, but at the centre of it all is generations of women who become the victims of the patriarchy and are taken advantage of by it, with history repeating itself throughout the generations. I think this is an astonishing debut and think people are best going into this somewhat blind because I personally believe the power of this book comes from the not knowing and pushing to know what comes next. I would highly recommend this book but flag the content warnings first.

Absolutely adored this book! It was so easy to read but so rich in character detail, and the way that all the different plotlines were woven together was seamless. I really enjoyed the combination of New York and Ireland as the settings, and the way that each new piece of the puzzle gave you a new perspective on each character. An amazing family saga!

Ireland has always had wonderful writers and Catherine Airey is a new one to watch. Her writing is precise, emotive, incisive, imaginative and compelling. Heartbreaking events and secrets form the underlying story, with characters who bear the burden and pay the price. Moving from New York and the Twin Towers travesty to Ireland, three generations of women tell their stories. Wide-ranging, each story provides another clue, another secret unveiled. ‘Confessions’ will probably win many awards.

This book had me, from the very first pages right through to the end and I loved it. On the first page is a quote from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories:

<blockquote>'She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening.' </blockquote>

And this perfectly sets the scene for this story about three generations of women. Focusing on each as a teenager, and how they cope with the magnitude of the situations they face. Each decision creating ripple lines, carrying their secrets far into the future. Fragments of each to be slowly revealed, and like pieces of a puzzle joined back together to create a fuller picture of their combined past. While not a thriller, there is a breadth and suspense which makes it a hard book to put down.

Few books I have read, have such a dramatic start.

<blockquote>'Two days after she disappeared, most of my mother's body washed up in Flushing Creek.'</blockquote>

Cora is reflecting on her past and on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She is a teenager, skipping school and looking forward to spending the day with her boyfriend when she hears the news about the World Trade Centre and comes to the realisation that her father would have been in the tower at the time.

While there is an urgency and despair in these pages, there are also beautiful moments of such poignancy. This combination of writing continues throughout the book and creates such warmth.

<blockquote>'There was a bowl of dry oatmeal on the kitchen island. My father prepared it each morning to encourage me to eat breakfast, as if the effort of pouring out the oats from the packet was the thing stopping me from eating.'</blockquote>

There are four stories, the first is Cora's, then we go back to the childhood of Cora's mother and sister, Maire and Roisin in a small town in Ireland and then the book concludes with Cora's daughter Lyra's. Each story creates and unravels many of the family's secrets and history, but there are common issues in each, such as growing up with the loss of (or without) a father, pregnancy, religion, and mental health.

There are some interesting choices in this book, such as Maire's story which is told in second person, which I found a little strange. In addition, the sections of the book are also introduced with an excerpt of an old 'choose your own adventure' computer game, which I actually thought was very clever and was another interesting link between the generations. Finally, there are a couple of bits at the end which didn't fully sit with me such as Scarlet's story and the outcome with the mansion. But all in all, it is a strong novel of hope, love, loss and making peace with oneself and the past.

Airey is a masterful author, and I am sure that I will be looking out for whatever she does next. Highly recommend!

Confessions is a multi-faceted story of 4 Irish women - 2 sisters, a daughter and granddaughter. I enjoyed it but, mainly due to the disjointed way it is written across multiple time lines, I found it hard to remember who was who and where we were in the story. I’m not sure I really got to know any of the characters in depth as we meet them at different points and often through other characters eyes.
However, the narrative was compelling and it is exteremely accomplished for a debut novel.

Loved this debut novel, out in the UK 23rd January.

Cora is left alone in NYC in Sept 2001 when her father dies in the Twin Towers. She travels to Ireland to live with her Mother‘s sister, who had been estranged from the family for years. We travel back in time to learn about Cora‘s mother, Maire, and her aunt Roisin, and then forwards as Cora‘s own daughter starts to piece together the family history.

Ultimately this is a book about women‘s agency over their own bodies and how they are treated by men. Only two little niggles - there was an unnecessary computer game storyline and the ending was slightly pat. 1w

I absolutely loved the journey that I was brought on by this book. Although there were times when I was jolted from one reality to another, I enjoyed the twists and turns. Catherine Airey is a true storyteller of the best kind.

A strong debut with complex, fleshed-out characters, following multiple generations of Irish/Irish-American women. I especially enjoyed the sibling dynamics - Róisín being punished for keeping it together while Máire was such a difficult character to like, but still easy to understand.

A story of "What ifs," the plot centres on abortion and unwanted pregnancy - issues deeply tied to recent history, with abortion only being legalised in Ireland as recently as 2018 and facing renewed criminalisation in various U.S. states today.

I would definitely recommend this if you like family stories that span decades and centre complex female characters.

Thank you to Catherine Airey, Mariner Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

September 11th, 2001 and Cora suddenly finds herself orphaned as her father was working in one of the towers of the World Trade Centre. For a while she is adrift in New York, wandering a city that has been wallpapered with missing persons notices. After a month or so she hears from an aunt in Ireland, a woman she has never met, but a woman who promised her father that if anything ever happened to him, she would look after Cora.
This is the beginning of the story which zigzags between characters and across timelines going forward to 2018 and back into the 1970's when Cora's aunt and her sister were children. To say much more than that would spoil the plot but in each sequence it is easy to get tied up in the character's story and perspectives.
This is a book about complex family relations and it also touches on women's rights especially in Ireland almost up to the present day. It is not always an easy read but it is a gripping story. I found that New York set against the 9/11 attacks and the Screamer's House in Ireland were excellent and easily imaginable as places. The link the game and the paths that it is possible to take only to find the same ending is an interesting image and theme through the book.
All in all an excellent read, a book I will keep thinking about for a while. With thanks to Netgalley and Rachel Quinn, marketing, for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

Confessions by Catherine Airey is a debut novel set in Ireland and America from 1970 - 2023. The book begins with Cora Brady in 2021 New York, confronting the profound loss of her father in the 9/11 attacks and the lingering effects of her mother's suicide from seven years prior. At Just 16 years old, Cora faces the reality of being orphaned, navigating a world that feels isolating and bewildering. She receives a letter from her aunt Roisin, her only legal guardian who lives in Donegal, Ireland, offering Cora a new home. This unexpected communication marks a pivotal moment in her life.
The novel starts slowly but ultimately transforms into a powerful and captivating story that spans three generations. Catherine Airey effectively tackles significant issues such as mental health, suicide, rape, women's rights, abortion, dementia, substance abuse, love, loss, secrets, and familial tensions with commendable skills.
The book is a multi-layered narrative that shifts between different timelines and characters. Despite its complexity, it successfully ties up loose ends, making it worthwhile.
Overall, it earns a strong recommendation as an excellent debut from me.

The book follows four women, all part of the same Irish family. Let's call them "the mother", "the sister", "the daughter", and "the grand-daughter". Their story spans several decades and moves between the Irish countryside and New York, as these women grow up, and learn about themselves. It also packs a few punches - parental loss, abortion, teenage pregnancy, suicide, mental illness, obsessive love, religion, etc. There is even a reference to 9/11 and the impact of the losses it caused at a micro-level (family).

I really liked the writing. It was compelling and fluid - the book was hard to put down, and the story read almost like a thriller, where one knows there is something to uncover, but it's not always clear what that thing is. The voices of the protagonists were also vivid and vibrant - they came across as real people and it was easy to believe such people exist, and think the way they do.

Upon reflection, though, I'm not sure I felt there was enough newness in the story. I recalled Amy Tan, Min Jin Lee, Rajasree Variyar, Isabel Allende, and found it difficult to get truly excited about this book, which came across like mix of all the above with Salley Rooney and Naoise Dolan. Nothing wrong in that per se, but it just felt a bit lazy storytellin-wise. I also struggled with the themes being treated in the same way as many other books that came prior, and the accumulation of terrible things in one family or blood-line.

It's a solid book nonetheless, and I think I would have enjoyed it much more had I not read so many similar books prior to this. So, if you're looking for an emotionally captivating and well written book about three generations of women struggling with being women in Ireland and the US, suffering from some men around them, the society that boxes them in, and their own resulting twisted psychology, this book is great for you.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

A really compelling read, if somewhat disjointed in places. It moves around between characters and time which meant I had to pause and work out who is who and how the characters are connected.

'Confessions' explores a number of important themes: abortion rights, drug use, family secrets, the impact of 9/11, gaming, art and exploitation. There is so much to discuss.

I imagine this novel is going to be widely discussed and end up being one of the big sellers of 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

For a debut novel Confessions is a surprising well written book.
As you read through the story you can understand the meaning of the title.
The story unfolds and reveals hidden secrets long buried with regards to the three generations of he family, starting with Cora in New York and of her mother Maine, aunt Roisin and her father Michael. The story switches between New York and Ireland.
A wonderful, gripping and emotional journey.

I loved this multi-layered story which felt very accomplished for a debut. It traces the arc of three generations of women as they experience in their own time the intense gravity of the past. The characters are so well-realised and the strands between the perspectives offers a very satisfying payoff. Highly recommend!