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The Sinner's Guide to Confession
Barbara, Kaye, and Ellen, longtime friends of a certain age, are inseparable——but each nurtures her own secret. As a widowed mother of three adult children, Barbara has no intention of revealing to anyone her persona as a celebrated writer of erotica. Kaye, in a stable but often joyless marriage, is having a clandestine affair that reawakens her passion even as it fills her with conflict. Ellen has lost her husband to a far younger woman, who is now pregnant with his child—a painful blow to Ellen since she and her husband were never able to conceive. But she is not childless…
Ellen is still haunted by the memory of the baby girl she had at sixteen and was forced to relinquish. Estranged from her family, Ellen is reluctantly thrust back into contact with them after the death of her father, and she realizes that if she is ever to find her lost daughter—now a grown woman herself—she will have to confront her shame and rely on her dearest friends.
Ellen is still haunted by the memory of the baby girl she had at sixteen and was forced to relinquish. Estranged from her family, Ellen is reluctantly thrust back into contact with them after the death of her father, and she realizes that if she is ever to find her lost daughter—now a grown woman herself—she will have to confront her shame and rely on her dearest friends.
374 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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104 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
June 16, 2014
I liked this book a lot. Mainly cause of the attitude Ellen (one of main characters) has towards forgiveness. I thought this would be the usual run of women's fiction regarding "women of a certain age" but it wasn't and I was happily surprised.
This is spoilery so be warned. Ellen got preggers at 16 and her parents forced her to give up the baby for adoption - basically her mum sold the baby to another couple. Ellen could never have any other children and then her husband leaves her for the younger woman he impregnates. Ellen has grieved for her lost child for 32 years.
Ellen was not a doormat or a saint, she did not give into taking her cheating, lying spouse back. Not only that, when she found out her mother sold her child against her wishes and knew where her child was for 32 years, she doesn't forgive the bitch. She finds all this out on the occasion of her father's funeral and she doesn't forgive him either - even though several of her family member's insist she should, that her dad felt bad about selling a baby for a new washer and dryer.
Ellen is justifiably outraged and infuriated and also emotionally void about her parents who were never really parents -- she doesn't back down from that stance. I like that a lot, I liked that Ms. Schieber took an unpopular position (cause isn't everybody all about forgiveness these days) regarding non-forgiveness and is willing to state that there are some actions that are completely and irrevocably unforgivable. When someone does them, their actions put them beyond redemption and the betrayed/hurt person has every right to renounce them and get them out of their life, even when it is your own parents.
BTW --Ellen does get to meet her daughter in the end and it is a nice resolution after the heartbreak and pain.
All in all this is a good book with a rarely seen but surprisingly realistic view of forgiveness and redemption and I really, really enjoyed the change.
This is spoilery so be warned. Ellen got preggers at 16 and her parents forced her to give up the baby for adoption - basically her mum sold the baby to another couple. Ellen could never have any other children and then her husband leaves her for the younger woman he impregnates. Ellen has grieved for her lost child for 32 years.
Ellen was not a doormat or a saint, she did not give into taking her cheating, lying spouse back. Not only that, when she found out her mother sold her child against her wishes and knew where her child was for 32 years, she doesn't forgive the bitch. She finds all this out on the occasion of her father's funeral and she doesn't forgive him either - even though several of her family member's insist she should, that her dad felt bad about selling a baby for a new washer and dryer.
Ellen is justifiably outraged and infuriated and also emotionally void about her parents who were never really parents -- she doesn't back down from that stance. I like that a lot, I liked that Ms. Schieber took an unpopular position (cause isn't everybody all about forgiveness these days) regarding non-forgiveness and is willing to state that there are some actions that are completely and irrevocably unforgivable. When someone does them, their actions put them beyond redemption and the betrayed/hurt person has every right to renounce them and get them out of their life, even when it is your own parents.
BTW --Ellen does get to meet her daughter in the end and it is a nice resolution after the heartbreak and pain.
All in all this is a good book with a rarely seen but surprisingly realistic view of forgiveness and redemption and I really, really enjoyed the change.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2008
this book is awful, I am not sure why I bought it. I can barely motivate myself to finish it. the characters are whiny, selfiindulgent people who are difficult to relate to.
August 17, 2008
A truthful book about intimacy among friends, but also the hesitancy to trust even our nearest and dearest with at least ONE deeply hidden segment of ourselves; there is always that one thing that might make us unacceptable. Schieber approaches all her characters’ entwined lives with humor and wisdom. She has the writing skills to make her characters real and vivid to us. She knows what makes women tick and understands why their close friendships are a necessary haven. More importantly for me, while she has a caustic wit, she’s not afraid to show the touching empathy she has for each character. Women and men with children will recognize themselves in this wonderful novel.
August 4, 2008
Each of the three main characters have a "secret" that they keep. Why? I don't know--it's nothing earth-shattering. They create needless drama in their lives, and it's all so predictable. Still, I did get sucked in enough to want to know how it ended.
June 29, 2019
The Sinners Guide to Confession by Phyllis Schieber is well-done chic literature, taking chic literature beyond the beach book of the younger set to a story of three friends in their 50’s who are keeping… shhh… secrets. Each friend, all middle aged, likable but fallible white women, relatively secure of their places in the world as middle class, find themselves upon a precipice of sorts. Ellen’s beloved husband of many years has left her for a younger woman, and she must decide how to define herself after this, as well as reconciling with her family who she long-ago left behind due to a traumatic experience she isn’t quite ready to share, even with her closest friends. Must she forever suffer? Kaye finds herself falling hard for a man who isn’t her staid and comfortable husband, father of her children, and at first, unable to tell her friends, she must decide how to move forward. Is there a “right” choice in a situation like this? And finally, Barbara, a widow, with lovely grown children, is discovering a side of herself that she never knew, now that her gambling and hastily married husband has passed, and she must decide whether to keep her new found delights under-wraps, or delight in the freedom it brings. How much do our children really know about who we are, and how do we define our true friendships? This book is about how these women learn about who they are, how they define themselves, and come to terms with telling the full truth to the people they care about the most.
July 28, 2020
This is not my usual type of book., it’s a story of friendship of 3 women. Ladies in their 50’s I think, all with secrets which is the core of the titles reference to confession. One woman’s husband has just left her for a younger woman and she had given up a baby at 16. One woman is having an affair. The third is a romance writer who secretly writes erotica.
The crux of the story is the friendship among the three. They are there for each other, they question each other, they encourage each other, they critique each other. They are the best of friends, the kind we would all like to have and that is what makes this book worth your time.
The crux of the story is the friendship among the three. They are there for each other, they question each other, they encourage each other, they critique each other. They are the best of friends, the kind we would all like to have and that is what makes this book worth your time.
March 7, 2018
A very enjoyable read. What struck me was the fact that this was a story about three middle-aged women with secrets. They were all accomplished in some way: a therapist, a romance writer and an interior designer. Each had their share of marital woes and family complications. I was very impressed with the author's ability to weave in each woman's challenge and at the same time show how their friendship with one another sustained them. I'm so glad I've discovered this wonderful author. It's not often I come across a novel with female protagonists who are not young.
December 23, 2023
3.5 stars - better as it went along
June 9, 2025
I felt like this wanted to be ‘First Wives’ Club’. Could not stand Kaye’s character.
January 20, 2009
The Sinner's Guide to Confession follows longtime friends Kaye and Barbara, who are now in their fifties. Kaye and Barbara soon make friends with Ellen, who is several years younger, but their friendship solidifies and becomes close-knit. The three women are inseparable, but each nurtures a secret.
The alternating narrators for the chapters keeps the reader guessing as to when the friends will break down all of the walls between them and share their deepest secrets. From a romance novelist hiding her alternate career as an erotica writer to a married woman having a long-term, passionate affair. Readers will appreciate the perspective Justine, Barbara's daughter, provides to Kaye and Barbara's relationship. The friendship between these women is long standing and much of the story focuses on their relationships with one another as well as their relationships with the men in their lives. The novel may be considered an older woman's chicklit book, but it has more substance.
Of the three women, Ellen's story was the most heart-wrenching and deeply moving. Readers learn early on about Ellen's secret, but as her chapters unfold, the devastation of one decision she makes early on in her life has significant impact on how her life unfolds. Ellen's decision establishes her reactions and interactions with others, her husband, and her friends. It's amazing how a decision not completely in her control molded her into the woman readers see in the beginning pages of this novel. Ellen is afraid of making decisions, hides behind the confidence brought by her false eyelashes, and holds deep grudges against her parents.
The intricate relationships between these characters are intense, and the relationships with each family member provides a realistic glimpse into the dynamics of family. Each member plays a specific role in how the family operates, and these women are central to those families.
The alternating narrators for the chapters keeps the reader guessing as to when the friends will break down all of the walls between them and share their deepest secrets. From a romance novelist hiding her alternate career as an erotica writer to a married woman having a long-term, passionate affair. Readers will appreciate the perspective Justine, Barbara's daughter, provides to Kaye and Barbara's relationship. The friendship between these women is long standing and much of the story focuses on their relationships with one another as well as their relationships with the men in their lives. The novel may be considered an older woman's chicklit book, but it has more substance.
Of the three women, Ellen's story was the most heart-wrenching and deeply moving. Readers learn early on about Ellen's secret, but as her chapters unfold, the devastation of one decision she makes early on in her life has significant impact on how her life unfolds. Ellen's decision establishes her reactions and interactions with others, her husband, and her friends. It's amazing how a decision not completely in her control molded her into the woman readers see in the beginning pages of this novel. Ellen is afraid of making decisions, hides behind the confidence brought by her false eyelashes, and holds deep grudges against her parents.
The intricate relationships between these characters are intense, and the relationships with each family member provides a realistic glimpse into the dynamics of family. Each member plays a specific role in how the family operates, and these women are central to those families.
May 22, 2009
Three women, Barbara, Kaye and Ellen, bonded in friendship and through shared experiences, each have a big secret. They have reached a point in their lives – a turning point, as it were – and must decide whether or not to risk sharing each of their secrets.
For Ellen, it is something that happened in her teens – a loss from which she has yet to recover. And when her husband betrays her with a younger woman, she suffers even more because of the earlier loss.
Barbara’s husband has just died, and as she adjusts to widowhood – and recuperates from the financial mess of her husband’s business life – she turns to her own secret life. But she holds it close to her, this special world of hers, because there is a huge risk to sharing. Everything she has built could be destroyed.
And Kaye’s secret could completely upend the world she has created with her husband.
With deft movement from past to present, with alternate peeks into each woman’s secret life, the author titillates the reader, revealing more as the story moves along to its conclusion.
What will happen in each woman’s life to bring the secrets into the open? And what effect will the exposure have on their lives, their friendship, and their future?
Compelling story – a little predictable at times – but interesting enough to warrant four stars. Recommended for women of a certain age, who can relate to the friendship aspect, as well as understand how life-changing experiences can bring about growth.
For Ellen, it is something that happened in her teens – a loss from which she has yet to recover. And when her husband betrays her with a younger woman, she suffers even more because of the earlier loss.
Barbara’s husband has just died, and as she adjusts to widowhood – and recuperates from the financial mess of her husband’s business life – she turns to her own secret life. But she holds it close to her, this special world of hers, because there is a huge risk to sharing. Everything she has built could be destroyed.
And Kaye’s secret could completely upend the world she has created with her husband.
With deft movement from past to present, with alternate peeks into each woman’s secret life, the author titillates the reader, revealing more as the story moves along to its conclusion.
What will happen in each woman’s life to bring the secrets into the open? And what effect will the exposure have on their lives, their friendship, and their future?
Compelling story – a little predictable at times – but interesting enough to warrant four stars. Recommended for women of a certain age, who can relate to the friendship aspect, as well as understand how life-changing experiences can bring about growth.
May 23, 2009
An interesting story about three women, each with a big secret. In the end, they all tell, and then they feel better. Big surprise, right?
I enjoyed reading it, but I never really connected with any of the characters. Halfway through the book, I was still reminding myself which name went with which secret. All three women seemed a little shallowly drawn and unconvincing somehow. Also, I got a little impatient with all the drama that could happen only because of the need to keep the big secret. The right answers are rarely so obvious when you're the one in the story, but since I'm not, the right answers just seemed way too obvious to me.
Still, though, an enjoyable story with a happy ending, and all the characters make the right decisions before the book is over. There's something satisfying in that.
I enjoyed reading it, but I never really connected with any of the characters. Halfway through the book, I was still reminding myself which name went with which secret. All three women seemed a little shallowly drawn and unconvincing somehow. Also, I got a little impatient with all the drama that could happen only because of the need to keep the big secret. The right answers are rarely so obvious when you're the one in the story, but since I'm not, the right answers just seemed way too obvious to me.
Still, though, an enjoyable story with a happy ending, and all the characters make the right decisions before the book is over. There's something satisfying in that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2015
I was disappointed by the book from the beginning, but plowed through since I feel I need to start reading books not part of the Twilight series.
What struck me, by accident, was the book turning into a story about a woman who gave up her child at 16. As someone who fervently believes in abortion rights people often speak to me about adoption and why doesn't everyone think this is the best possible scenario? This story speaks to the loneliness, the debilitating grief, and decades of anger and betrayal that accompanied many families in the 1950s and 60s. (See also a book on my "abortion self" called The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade.)
What struck me, by accident, was the book turning into a story about a woman who gave up her child at 16. As someone who fervently believes in abortion rights people often speak to me about adoption and why doesn't everyone think this is the best possible scenario? This story speaks to the loneliness, the debilitating grief, and decades of anger and betrayal that accompanied many families in the 1950s and 60s. (See also a book on my "abortion self" called The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade.)
September 17, 2016
Couldn't put it down. Three friends Ellen Kaye and Barbara have been friends for a long time. Each with their own story. Ellen got pregnant at 16 was a disgrace to her family and forced to give her daughter up for adoption. She deals with this everyday. Her husband bill also left her for a much younger woman who he is having a baby with. Kaye is struggling with her infidelity to man she can't get enough of. She knows it's wrong but he makes her feel things her husband no longer does or ever has. Barb is a widow and has 2 children. She writes romance novels under her name Barbara shore but she had a secret name that nobody knows about that she writes erotica under. Each woman is dealing with their issue and together they confess it all and let them be there for each other.
August 10, 2008
I love how this book shows that not everyone is what we may think they are. Everyone has their secrets, whether large or small, but it's how they're dealt with or who is included in-the-know that tells the real story.
This delicious read takes us through the raw emotion and nakedness of these women, these friends, exposing their flaws, their desires, their pain, their ecstasy and their humanness. This book carries the reader into every corner of those secrets, the deepest, darkest caverns of truths tucked away and the impacts they have on lives and friendships.
Fabulous! Delicious! Passionate!
This delicious read takes us through the raw emotion and nakedness of these women, these friends, exposing their flaws, their desires, their pain, their ecstasy and their humanness. This book carries the reader into every corner of those secrets, the deepest, darkest caverns of truths tucked away and the impacts they have on lives and friendships.
Fabulous! Delicious! Passionate!
August 10, 2008
I loved this book. It was poignant and funny at different intervals. The characters struggle with secrets that vary in degree and intensity, but the point doesn't seem to be as much about the secrets as it is about how hard it is to open up to the people we love. I thought the writing was wonderful, and I read and reread the ending: it was perfect. I cannot imagine any woman who will not see herself in one of these characters. And the sex was really well done...worth the read in and of itself!
August 11, 2008
A MUST READ. Schieber's characters are rich and dynamic. They are so real any one of them could be someone you know. The novel as a whole screams best seller. You'll find yourself laughing out loud, wanting to cry (or actually crying), screaming in frustration as you sympathize with the characters and of course feeling a bit sexy. It is a real roller coaster of emotion. Needless to say I LOVED IT!
August 12, 2008
I could not put this book down, and I thought it was a perfect summer read. It was very entertaining, funny and also extremely sad in parts. I thought that even though the characters all kept secrets from one another, their motivations and conversations were honest and believable. I enjoyed reading about the secondary characters, also. Their stories really rounded out the plot and gave the book more depth.
August 17, 2008
"Sinner's Guide" is a delight from start to finish. The author's trademark humor sparkles throughout, and the dialogue crackles with wit. Gracefully written, it is at once funny and profound, and offers a moving testament to the healing power of female friendship. 'Sinner's Guide' is a perfect selection for book clubs. Don't miss it.
April 1, 2009
This book was a good read- it was hard to follow at first because it is narrated by 3 women. However, after getting used to the writing style you can easily tell which character is narrating the story. It is about the secrets that everyone keeps and the freedom that can be gained by sharing. The ending was the best part of the book.
August 30, 2015
Story began quite promising and the problems and secrets they have are very real --- well except the erotic writer, I don't know what to make of her 'secret' but it seems she's there mostly for her blunt er 'witty remarks.
Though pretty soon I just couldn't make myself care about any of the characters and am struggling to make it to the end
Though pretty soon I just couldn't make myself care about any of the characters and am struggling to make it to the end
August 10, 2008
I loved this book! It's a great story about the importance of female friendship, and the secrets three women choose to share. I loved the development of the characters and the different relationships that they have with one another. It is also extremely well written. A++
August 10, 2008
Phyllis Schieber's writing is exceptional, but her content is even better. She knows what's in women's hearts and minds and she proves this by going where most author's won't go. She tells the truth. Don't miss this fantastic novel.
August 12, 2008
Awesome. Terrific story that gives insight into frienships, relationships and the dynamics of both . I really enjoyed reading this book and felt that I could relate to the characters and the theme .
August 17, 2008
A great read, I totally enjoyed this book. Phyllis Schieber’s novel reinforces my feelings about the importance of friendships. She expresses this through her great storyline and character development. Don’t miss this one!
October 1, 2008
I am finally finished. Whew. This was ok. Eh. If it were a soup, it would be lukewarm and not a lot of flavor. I stuck it through to the end... barely. It definitely helped lull me to sleep most nights. ;)
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May 7, 2009Hey Stephani! Here is a page-turner girl-book that I am reading now. Put it on your To-Read Shelf, but don't read it until you are in your 50s. Lots of secret 50-year-old stuff that you don't want to know.
June 10, 2009
I was bored by this book. This rarely happens, but...I decided not to even finish it!
August 10, 2008
This novel is a deep and moving experience. If you are a reader of serious lit. and care about language and how it's used in narrative, pick this up and begin!
August 28, 2008
I really enjoyed this book because it dealt with my age group of women. It was a good beach read - read straight for 2 days.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews