Title:  The Confessional
Series:
Author:  Reiny Pierson
Genre:  Mystery, Thriller
Published:  January 6, 2014
Source:  NetGalley

Story Blurb:

Sarah Tazewell, a cerebral, highly intuitive woman, knew from an early age that she was psychic. When she and her husband David buy a confessional booth from The Governor’s Antiques in Mechanicsville, VA and convert it into a phone booth for their Queen Anne Victorian, Sarah senses a presence in the confessional. Later, the voices become only one voice: that of a murderer that rapes and strangles his victims. Though consumed with fear and anxiety, Sarah refuses to be a victim and sets out on a journey to learn more about the confessional. Sarah’s antagonist is a brilliant, charismatic sexual psychopath who conforms to a ritual of murder and confession. The confessional in the 100-year-old church where he confessed was an integral part of the ritual. When he comes to confess after another murder, he finds “his” confessional gone and begins a frantic search to find it.

Read on for my thoughts on The Confessional.  No true spoilers, promise.

The confessional was perfect.  It was intended to be turned into an inside phone booth for their Victorian home.  It was possibly the worst purchase of their lives.

The confessional was gone!  How was this possible?  Who would remove his sacred place?  The one place where he could confess his terrible sins, or relive them.  He would find it – and punish those that dared to interfere with his set ritual of using that particular confessional.

The Confessional was a whirlwind of emotions and ultimately an enjoyable read for me.  Sarah is psychic.  It isn’t something that she had shared with her husband David, but it was an integral part of her life for as long as she could remember.  At first she wasn’t surprised, truly, to hear voices from their new confessional.   After all, it did come from a church that was over 100 years old.  A lot of people had passed through that confessional over the years.  But soon the voices faded until there was only one voice.  The voice of a sexual predator, a murderer who wants his confessional returned.  Now begins a race to find a killer and save her own life.

I found this to be a relatively fast paced mystery.  Ms Pierson’s descriptive style of writing certainly painted a vivid picture of what was happening and how Sarah was reacting throughout the story.  Sarah has a lot on her plate in this novel – an unrelenting voice full of evil, her husband’s disbelief in her abilities and her own self-doubts along the way.  An emotional read is a very good description of how I felt as I devoured this novel.

I enjoyed it and would give it a 4 outta 5 rating.  If you love mysteries with a touch of the unusual then I suspect you would enjoy The Confessional.

*I received an e-ARC of The Confessional from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

The Confessional is available at Amazon for the Kindle.