Phyllis Schieber

Kaye and Barbara are longtime friends, now in their fifties. Ellen, younger by several years, is brought into the fold years later, completing the group. The three women are inseparable, though each nurtures a secret that she keeps from the others. Barbara, a widowed mother of three grown children, is an accomplished romance writer who also has a secret persona as a celebrated erotica writer. Kaye, a practicing therapist and the mother of two, finds her marriage stable, but joyless. When she becomes involved with another man, she keeps her affair secret from her friends, too conflicted about her duplicity to expose herself. However, it is Ellen, a successful interior designer, quietly childless yet ever hopeful, and the seemingly perfect modern woman, who harbors the most profound secret of all.

After her beloved husband betrays her, leaving her for a woman half her age who is also pregnant with his child, Ellen must face all her losses anew. First, there is the pain of the children she could never conceive with her husband. More importantly, however, there is the haunting memory of the child she had at sixteen and was forced to relinquish at birth. Estranged from her family, Ellen is thrust back into contact after the death of her father, and learns that if she is ever to find her lost daughter—now a grown woman herself—she will have to confront her shame and share her secret with her two closest friends.

The Sinner's Guide to Confession is an absorbing read in its breezy study of friendship, family and couple relationships. The novel revolves around the lives and secrets of three women friends - their loves, hopes, trials and ultimate resolution of quandaries. In a fast paced revelation of complicated real life, each friend’s secret becomes an admission leading to "confession." A real page-turner.

Phyllis Schieber gets into the hearts and minds of her wonderfully rich and well rounded characters in a story that touches the readers’ hearts and minds. Smart fiction that makes you think... what could be better?