Customer Reviews

Confession

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a previous Elizabeth Gage fan, I was extremely disappointed by both this and Hourglass. This book has potential, and that is both the meanest and nicest thing I can say about it. Gage likes giving the last scene as the first chapter, and having you guess at the ending, but it is usually a surprise because all the characters have the motivation to do as was detailed. In this book, however, it seemed as if she was just slapping in a character to make it surprising (I won't go into more detail than that).

This book, had it been a few hundred pages longer and involved more insight, would have been good. Unfortunately, she seems to have gotten tired of the plotline (with some good reason), and dropped it before it was quite done. If you really want a book that will stay with you (instead of just a quick read), get her early works instead.

Rebecca Lowell has it all. She has a wealthy, powerful, and ambitious spouse. She owns a beautiful home in an exclusive part of Long Island and a pied a tiere in Manhattan. She possesses more luxurious items than just about any fifty people combined. In spite of all her material possessions, Rebecca is an isolated, lonely person, craving intellectual stimulation.

For many years, Rebecca has successfully sublimated her deepest desires in support of her spouse's high profile legal career and guiding her daughter towards adulthood. However, her image is shattered when her daughter brings home her boy friend, Tony Delafield, to meet her parents. Tony immediately realizes that he is seeing the wrong Lowell woman. Rebecca tries to deny her own feelings, but fails. They ultimately give in to their passion for one another. They run away together, setting in motion a chain reaction that can only end in tragedy for all concerned.

CONFESSION is a parable of the consequences that can arise when a woman only finds self-worth in her relations with other individuals. Elizabeth Gage paints a gritty but fascinating picture of a woman, who for years denies her own needs and feelings until she eventually implodes. Readers who engage a Ms. Gage novel know they are reading a work from a rising star.

Harriet Klausner

Elizabeth Gage is a writer that I have been slowly reading more and more of lately. I have come to enjoy her writing. Elizabeth Gage mixes mystery, danger, suspense, lush descriptions, and erotic encounters into her writing. The women are detailed right down to their ordinary features, or not so ordinary talents. The men are detailed right down to their habits. It's this attention to detail, and description that can get me entirely lost in her books.

Elizabeth Gage offers in Confession a story about a marriage that was plagued with blatant infidelity, and a complete lack of affection. Although the marriage appears solid and steady, appearances can be deceiving.

Rebecca married Damon two decades and some change ago. They were young and in love, well possibly. Rebecca after twenty years of marriage starts to wonder if it was more love, or stability that brought the two to the altar. Rebecca settles into suburban life, and the facade of keeping appearances up. She doesn't feel beautiful anymore, and certainly doesn't feel loved. Her husband only stirs his passion around in her when he wants to, or when he thinks she might be getting fed up with him.

Rebecca and Damon's daughter Dusty is finally off at college as well. Rebecca doesn't know whether this is a relief to her, or a bad thing. The idea that Dusty is grown and independent makes her proud. The last thing she wants is for Dusty to marry early and for the wrong reasons like she did. But Dusty does bring home Tony, who it seems is the man she wants to marry.

Damon comes home one day and finds Rebecca has disappeared. Damon can't decide what to tell their daughter Dusty. When he finally does tell her that it seems her mother has run off, Dusty has a revelation of her own. This is where the story could have gotten really interesting...well could have!

This wasn't a favorite Elizabeth Gage novel for me, I can't recommend it. Why? Well it was a good read, had some great material to work with but it fell short of my expectations. The prologue pretty much tells you the ending(I know this is common but this one REALLY ruins the story), and makes it even more predictable then ever. Spend your money elsewhere.

I had never read any of the books by Elizabeth Gage until I bought Confession. I thought it was excellent and I couldn't put it down. Since reading it I have purchased two more of her books. I highly recommend this book.

Elizabeth Gage has never failed to entertain me to the max. Whenever she releases a new book ,I know I'm in for a thrill ride. Her characters are well-developed, run the gambit from good to bad and she tells you what makes them tick. "Confession" was shorter than most of her books, but I was not disappointed, for this story it was perfect. Coming from Mira, I expected the usual tried and true happy ending, but with Gage you never know what you're going to get. She did not disappoint me. This is a must read. I see she has another coming out in September, "Against All Odds." I can't wait.

As an avid fan of Elizabeth Gage, I check with various book stores frequently on when her next novel is coming out. I happened to stumble across "Confession" and was thrilled to see that Ms. Gage was still writing, although I was disappointed that there was little publicity about the book. I must say that "Confession" does not depict the quality of Ms. Gage's other novels, e.g., Glimpse of Stocking, Taboo, Master Stroke. I can only hope that her next book, "Hourglass", gives us back the old style of literary works!

I wait with bated breath for each E. Gage release and wish she wrote as fast as Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts so I couldn't wait to read this latest offering because she is from past reading experience worth the wait. I buy all her books in hardcover because I can't wait for the paperback version (the only author who I do this for) Unfortunately this was probably her weakest entry. The writing was as good as ever and I liked most of the characters but the story was perhaps too short. I wish she could have developed the Tony character more so we could have learned more of his background and resulting actions. I wanted a chapter or two about what his character was up to while the other characters were developing. I also wasn't satisfied with the ending either as I had been with Gage's past books. Her recent short story that appeared in Masquerade was much stronger, more seductive and mysterious. The kind of stuff that I expect of Ms. Gage and hopefully will see soon.

Simon & Schuster did not want Elizabeth Gage. Joni Evans, then the wife of Dick Snyder (who later ran Little Golden Books into the ground, as was reported by Publishers Weekly many times), rejected the book on behalf of S&S. Bill Grose, the head of Pocket Books, somehow got around her, and S&S exercised its topping privilege to win Jay Garon's auction and acquire A GLIMPSE OF STOCKING for $511,500. Garon's contract was a good one: the author retained all rights except North American. With foreign sales, the earnings reached $1.4 million.

S&S didn't want Gage because they had Jackie Collins, that great talent, and Judith Michael, the nerdy husband-and-wife writing team. They were also offended that this first novelist from Glenview, Illinois, had so much more talent than their own authors.

At a lunch at the Four Seasons Restaurant, Michael Korda and his then special friend Trish Lande tried to get Gage and her husband to change to a writing husband-and-wife team like Judith Michael. Gage and her husband refused. S&S walked out of the Four Seasons while the author was in the ladies' room.

Later Korda tried to get Gage to take a lower royalty than the one specified in the contract. Gage refused.After six weeks of pressure. S&S caved.

The editing, by a faceless group of editors, was finished, the book was ready to go to press, when Korda turned the script over to Lande, saying "See if you can find anything wrong with this."

Lande covered the manuscript with coffee stains and cut out chapters which were crucial to the momentum of the book. In a long-distance conference call to Gage in Hawaii, Korda told her, "You have to make Trish's changes. You have to understand why it is so important that you surrender to us."

Gage lectured Korda and Lande over the phone about Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby, in which Fitzgerald stops the action to simply give the names of the people who visited West Egg that summer. "My chapters are far more important to the movement of the story than Fitzgerald's Chapter 4."

Chastened, furious, Korda said "I guess Trish and I should read those chapters again." In the end the chapters stayed. The book became a New York Times bestseller, But S&S did not forgive. They withdrew Gage's second novel, Pandora's Box, from the stores after one week "for lack of interest."

Jay Garon, furious, moved Gage to Pocket Books, where she received big advances but zero promotion.

As a result, Gage never became a brand name novelist, but her five novels for S&S/Pocket and her two books for Mira remain cult classics with avid fans around the world. Her unique combination of violence, sex, and psychological depth set her far above the Krantzes and Collinses and Bradfords of the writing world.

Meanwhile, Gage went on to write novels under other pseudonyms which made a great deal of money and won publishing awards. She is now a literary novelist whose real identity is not known, and who doesn't have any problems paying the bills.

I am an avid fan of Elizabeth Gage's first popular books: Pandora's Box, A Glimpse of Stocking, and The Master Stroke. I also was captivated by her novel Intimate. However, Taboo was just so-so. This novel, Confession, was a huge disappointment. The first two thirds of the novel dragged by and was hard for me to read!! I assure you that if you read any of the first three titles I mentioned, you will not be able to put them down! This, on the other hand, started to make me yawn! The last third of the novel picked up and was much more readable than the first two thirds! If you want my advice, read Ms. Gage's other books first, but skip this one! Confession is not a good representation of Elizabeth Gage's talent as a writer. Also, judging by the reviews, avoid her other novel, Against All Odds! Go for her early works!

Rebecca Lowell, the main character of the novel, had been so unhappy with her life, and somehow she was not even aware of it. She was the wife of Damon Lowell, a well-known lawyer who was more concerned with how people perceived his family life to be than how it actually was. He tried to make it seem like he was part of the "All American" family, and that everything was perfect. In actuality, he had been having an extra marital affair for years, which his wife was aware of. Rebecca was extremely disturbed by this, and it only added to her unhappiness. She thought that this was the only way that life could be, and that she was trapped. She thought that the only thing to life was running errands for Damon and throwing parties for the partners in his firm. She desperately needed a change. Their daughter Dusty, who was now in college, came home to introduce her serious boyfriend, Tony, to her parents. Everything seemed to be going well. Tony was a lot like Damon, because of his seriousness with school and his future. There was something about Rebecca that attracted Tony, and he could not get past it. When he confronted Rebecca about this, both of their lives changed forever. Rebecca stated, "It is time that has brought this sudden and terrible change, this necessary change." Rebecca would never be the same, and her relationship with her daughter was permanently damaged. Through trying to explain herself to Dusty, she only hurt her more. In one letter, Rebecca wrote, "Forgive me, Dusty, if you can. Live your life and be happy, and try to forget all this." But Dusty and Damon were both unable to do this. What she had done to them was too painful. I thought that this book was both interesting and enthralling. Once I started reading Confession, I could not put it down. It displays what a drastic effect other people can have on someone's life. It also illustrates how things that happen by sheer chance can change someone's life forever. It combines mystery, action, suspense and romance, which come together to create a remarkable novel. I would give this book 4 stars.