Clara’s Verdict
Jessie Burton is one of the most gifted prose stylists working in British fiction today, and The Confession – her third novel, following the extraordinary success of The Miniaturist and The Muse – demonstrates both her strengths and the particular pressures of following a debut that made you briefly famous. This is a novel about secrets, mothers, identity, and the stories we tell about ourselves; about the distance between who we are and who we allow the world to see.
It didn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessors for me, but I think that’s partly a function of expectation, and partly a function of Burton deliberately moving away from the kind of story that made her name. What she’s doing here is more intimate and more psychologically honest. The audiobook format, with Hayley Atwell narrating, brings out the best in it.
About the Audiobook
A Sunday Times bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Confession spans three decades and two timelines. In the 1980s, Elise Morceau falls under the spell of Constance Holden, a charismatic and successful novelist, and follows her to Los Angeles – a city that dazzles and disorients in equal measure. In present-day London, Rose Simmons is searching for the mother who disappeared when she was a baby. Her search leads her to the now-reclusive Constance, and the convergence of past and present is handled with considerable skill.
Burton is particularly good on the seductions of creative power – the way writers become objects of fascination, the danger of being absorbed into someone else’s story. The relationship between Elise and Connie has an erotic charge that the narrative handles frankly and without sentimentality. The contemporary London sections, by contrast, are quieter and more interior, as Rose works to understand a loss that was never explained to her.
At just under twelve hours, the novel has room to breathe. Burton uses the dual timeline to generate dramatic irony: we know more than Rose does, and the gap between her ignorance and our knowledge creates a particular kind of narrative tension.
The Narration
Hayley Atwell narrates, and she is magnificent. She has the rare ability to inhabit multiple registers within a single listening session – the glamour and unease of 1980s Hollywood, the quieter emotional landscape of contemporary London – without the joins showing. Her voice for Constance is especially strong: intelligent, slightly withholding, seductive in the way that powerful people can be seductive. It is an authoritative performance that elevates the already considerable qualities of Burton’s prose.
What Readers Say
The book holds a 4.2 rating. Readers who came to it via The Miniaturist and The Muse have had mixed responses: some found it every bit as compelling, while others felt the pace was slower and the central mystery slightly drawn out. One reviewer described it as “absorbing, spellbinding,” praising the “clearly defined timelines which enhance the narrative” and the book’s meditation on self-definition. Another called it “a story about the search for identity – clever and compelling.” Elizabeth Day called it “dazzlingly good… without doubt one of the best novels of recent years.”
Who Should Listen?
Readers who value literary fiction with genuine psychological depth, and who are drawn to stories about women navigating power, creativity, and identity. Fans of Sarah Waters, Maggie O’Farrell, and Sarah Winman will find much to admire. The dual timeline structure works particularly well in audio form, where Atwell’s voice shifts between eras with effortless clarity. Those who found The Miniaturist too atmospheric may find this more immediately satisfying in its psychological realism.
Available to listen now on Audible UK: Listen to The Confession by Jessie Burton on Audible UK.
