A brilliant throughout whodunit had me gripped from start to finish.
Can't wait to read the next book ,have never read any of this author's books before .

4.5 stars
4.5 stars
I must admit that I was confused for the first quarter of the book , but as soon as I got a hold of what really happens, I was so invested that I have finished it in one sitting.
The story is told in multiple points of view from multiple characters, as in what happens now in present when they get back together and then, many years back and the secrets that everyone is hiding or somehow choose to forget about them over the years.
The story it’s very good, there are so many layers that are unfolded and the author managed to surprise me at times with some turns of events that I didn’t see them coming.
I’ll definitely recommend it for the thrillers lovers .

A group of seven friends are reunited, Clare, Laura, Helen, Patrick and Murph, are all invited to Edie and Johnny’s new luxury resort, they have taken the old convent and completely refurbished it, to become a resort and soon to be spa for holidaymakers.

They want their friends to see what they have done to the place, as well as a chance for them all to get together again, a reunion, to catch up on each other’s lives, they are now 46. At first the drinks are flowing, the group are full of laughter and merriment, reminiscing about the past, but despite this you sense that there is something lurking in the background.

Then the weather changes a storm coming in, the power goes down, and the atmosphere changes, the tension rises. They are isolated, so no going anywhere, a body is washed up. Each character has layers that are gradually Peeled away until they are left bare. Old secrets start to come out. How is the past and present linked? Who is terrorising them? Is one of the group a killer?

The story is told through multiple characters points of view, some in the present, some in the past, as things are revealed. The pages are turned fast as you are soon engrossed in the plot, not knowing what twist and turn is coming next. This is one gripping read, a fast paced ride, the suspense, and tension, building throughout the book. Leading you to a great ending, that you just don’t see coming.

Thank you to #netgalley and #HarperCollins for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

Thank you to the publisher for a e-copy of the book. All thoughts are my own and unbiased.

When I started I confess, it felt like reading someone’s diary. It felt sneaky, it felt private and most of all it gave me a first-class ticket on someone’s personal ride to hell. There was a deep undercurrent of evil fizzling through the story, threatening to snap up to the surface, making its presence known, jolting everyone back to the past. You just knew that something sinister was going to invade everyone’s space. The cover sent a chill down my spine.

A reunion, seven friends…what could go wrong?

Seven friends reunite, and recount stories of days gone by. They are marred by past events, what happened? For many of the seven characters childhood was a battleground. They drink, become merry, have a laugh, a jibe and reminisce. It was all supposed to be fun, the lines weren’t supposed to become blurred. Just how wrong do things need to become for the group to leave and never be the same again? We all develop and become products of our childhood and adolescence but not allowing it to determine the rest of your life is what is important

Edie and Johnny. They have renovated a site of remarkable childhood importance and have transformed it into a luxury Inn. It’s impressive. Situated in Beara in West Cork they both decided to invest, but not before getting a good friend to give it the once over for them, Patrick. Great financial strain and paperwork don’t stand in their way and they develop it fantastically. Where else would be the perfect backdrop for their reunion for her best friend, Helen’s birthday. Edie is such a kind and caring soul who in my estimation puts incredible amounts of pressure on herself to be the perfect hostess to their friends. She wants them to love the place, but she also wants her friends to be happy. Johnny, Edie’s husband is a strange one for me. He constantly seems on edge and nervy, keeps disappearing into the basement. He also seems to have a bit of a problem with Patrick. Just what has gone on between them? What will transpire as the night goes on? I went into the novel with an open mind, I let it lead me blind even though I could feel the spirits of days gone past all around me.

The friends, Helen, Laura, Claire, Murphy and Patrick arrive, and you get a sense of pride in their friend. Each character has complex layers and as the night develops we get to see them stripped bare. Motives and behaviours being unleashed under stress and panic. Murphy was by far my favourite character and his uncanny sense of humour which could be devilishly dark and self-deprecating kept the group alive. Even during the scenes when everyone else was lashing out and becoming more and more defensive, Murphy just couldn’t stop making hilarious comments, probably due to his nerves. As the night continues on, we get POV’s of all the characters when they were young. It’s a foreshadowing, its intricate and it just leaves the reader with more questions than it answers. Things get complicated when the power goes out, the tension is fraught and sizzling with electricity and then they discover a body…

The body is the catalyst for the group to basically implode. Home truths are thrown around, doubts start creeping into their minds and the fear is palpating around them. This discovery feels like a ten-tonne weight that seven individuals are trying carry. It’s heavy, it’s a burden and it threatens to destroy them all. The past has come back to haunt them. You can’t outrun your past. The luxury Inn is where the past becomes the present. The novel had me guessing until the very end, no-one was safe, everyone was potentially a threat. Alex Barclay writes with a honed skill that leaves devastation in her path. She writes every-day normal people with such an authentic sense of foreboding. I had my suspicions, but I was entirely proven wrong, I liked that the author dropped the mic on me. I felt the fear, how vivid scenes became, dancing in my vision.

I Confess, is dripping in eerie rawness. You can feel the clock ticking and your heart racing and the dread creeping up your spine. A book that will give you papercuts with the speed of the page turning.

Seven friends. One killer. No escape…

A group of childhood friends are reunited at a luxury inn on a remote west coast peninsula in Ireland. But as a storm builds outside, the dark events that marred their childhoods threaten to resurface.

And when a body is discovered, the group faces a shocking realisation: a killer is among them, and not everyone will escape with their lives...


I’ve never read a book by Alex Barclay before but this book was great. It was fast paced and often funny. The characters were well developed and you get to learn more about them through flashbacks which I liked. Annoyingly the last bit of the book felt a bit rushed and far fetched. Otherwise I probably would have given this book full 5 stars.

Having read all six of Alex Barclay’s Ren Bryce books, I took the opportunity to read her new stand- alone with both hands.
Edie and Johnny have converted a convent from their school days into a luxury Inn in a remote part of Ireland and a group of their forty-something friends meet to admire the result.
The story moves between the voices of different group members and across varying timelines since their school days forward and it is clear from the start that their relationship has been cemented by a childhood tragedy.
It’s a stormy dark evening and relations are fairly strained within the group, but the drink flows and when the power goes down all hell breaks loose.
I love Alex Barclay’s intricate plots and detailed backstories, but with all characters so unpleasant it was difficult to focus as required, and by the time their backgrounds were sufficiently fleshed out, I felt it was almost too late for me.
The informal dialogue, especially the frequent use of ‘Lads’ when the friends referred to one another was distracting, and there was one troublingly violent bedroom scene.
I like to get fully absorbed in a read like this, but even as the action intensified and the body count started to rise, I confess I just couldn’t get there.
With thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK

Loved the premise of this book, I love a good whodunit, but sadly I just couldn't get the vibe in this book, I struggled to.connect to the characters and felt it lacked suspense.

This is just my opinion, I'm sure others will disagree.

Thanks to net galley for the opportunity to review this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

An expertly composed thriller from a first-class proponent of the genre.

Being a huge fan of Alex Barclay's and a recent convert to locked room mysteries, I was thrilled to come across "I Confess". Oh and what a joy it was to be rewarded by a tense, atmospheric, character-driven novel. Admittedly, this book took a bit of getting into while the author laid the foundations for the unfolding narrative, but once the ensuing story got into its stride.... I had to read one more page, then another, and another.... Seven friends reunite in a small Irish town still haunted by the death of a local girl in the 1980s. Thrown into the mix is the emotive subject of clerical abuse and the complicated dynamics of friends reunited - pun intended - and we are all set for an explosive, twisty, psychologically well-observed, first-class thriller. Because one of the seven is a killer - but which one? Well, that would be telling. Suffice to say, you won't be disappointed even if you have bitten your nails to the quick, started chain-smoking to cope with the anxiety, or lost a prodigious amount of sleep in reading "I Confess". I certainly was not disappointed by the expertly constructed narrative and creative talents of Alex Barclay. Whilst not the best of Alex Barclay's novels,. this is certainly up there with one of the best I have recently encountered in this genre.

A real page-turner. #Iconfess #NetGalley

Summary:
Seven friends. One killer. No escape…
A group of childhood friends are reunited at a luxury inn on a remote west coast peninsula in Ireland. But as a storm builds outside, the dark events that marred their childhoods threaten to resurface.
And when a body is discovered, the group faces a shocking realisation: a killer is among them, and not everyone will escape with their lives…

I enjoyed this psychological thriller and loved the way alternate chapters dealt with the teenage years of each character. We were able to see the past and how certain events shaped the lives of each of the friends through their own eyes. This kept me promising myself I would read just one more chapter until I was so far into the book that I thought I might as well finish it. While there was a certain amount of intrigue here, I was disappointed to learn the identity of the killer so early on. I think the story lost a lot of tension here and left this a good book rather than a great one.
Review posted on Goodreads and Amazon

I really enjoyed reading this tense and exciting thriller from Alex Barclay set in a remote luxury hotel featuring a group of people who had been friends since childhood who gather for a birthday party.
The group quickly becomes aware of a murder at the hotel which they discuss whilst considering the consequences of any actions they take. It becomes clear that the friends are not all thinking along the same lines. As the story progresses, we learn more and more about the different events in the friends' lives that helped shape their characters to become who they are now. Quite a few shocks later, we learn who the killer is and the efforts to stop him/her are tense and exciting.

There are a good few characters to keep track of which wasn't a problem for me as they all have their own roles to play in the story and personalities with complete back-stories.

I am a big fan of Alex Barclay and couldn’t wait to try this one. Wasn’t disappointed and I can’t wait to read more!

this was a really interesting story with a great amount of atmosphere. I loved the change between past and present narratives as I find it is a great way to weave in the story and keep me wanting to read on. I thought there might have been a bit too many characters for me to hold all at once, and became quite lost and confused halfway through. but it is still a great story I'm sure many will love.

I have to confess i didn't enjoy I Confess by Alex Barclay ! The book is centred around a group of childhood friends who are all together for the weekend at a remote luxury hotel,but one of them is a killer.They are all hiding dark secrets from their time growing up together in Ireland.In all honesty though i lost interest in the story pretty quickly as it jumped from one character to the next going back to their childhood days and the dialogue between them was just not enough to keep me interested as the whole book just seemed to drag on and on until the killer is revealed by which time i really was not bothered who it was.Looking at some other reviews i may well be in the minority with my review but sorry I Confess was just not for me,it is a book i wouldn't recommend and no more than a 2 star read for me.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. I could not get into this book. It was confusing. I didn’t like how it jumped around and I gave up after a few chapters.

I so wanted to like this book and have been looking forward to reading it but it left me disappointed.

It's about this group of friends who get together at the newly renovated luxury Inn that was bought by Edie and Johnny. They reminisce about the old times when they were young and about a tragic accident that occurred that took the life of 1 of their friends. Then the power goes out and everything goes downhill with the discovery of a body. What secrets are they hiding? And who is the killer?

It kind of reminded me halfway through of the game Cludo. Who done it, with what and where? It was funny to later on actually see a reference to the game in the book.

I found the last bit of the book a bit far fetched and the ending a bit rushed.

Thank you to #netgalley and HarperCollinsUK for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Brilliant. A really good thriller with a lot of action and great characters. The wonderful setting in Ireland adds atmosphere to the story

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I really like this author and all that he has written but this is a standalone thriller and would recommend to other readers.

The story starts with a group of old schoolfriends meeting to celebrate. it is Helens birthday and Edie and Johnny are running a new hotel so invite everyone to the hotel as a house warming.and a birthday party. Edie and Johnny have come back to the Beara Peninsula with their son and bought the old convent to convert into a hotel. All their old friends have returned too. The night begins well until a body is discovered. Everyone in the party has their own secrets, some are known to others but not all. This is the night where the truth unfolds and we discover the evil that lurks within the group.
I loved the tension in this story, helped of course by the environment, an old convent on a stormy night. The story begins with a bang but the friends' history unravels slowly!
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Alex Barclay for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Fast-paced, atmospheric, and a thrilling read all the way to the end. I really enjoyed seeing this story through to the end and the way the world and characters developed from start to finish.

Fantastic, amazing, twisty I could not stop reading.
The writing was good, the world building was fantastic and I was sucked in from the story.
I wasn't a big fan of the grammar and i felt like the story could have been shortened up a bit.

I would read this Author again