Book Description:
DECEPTION. THEFT. MURDER. ALL YOU NEED IS CONFIDENCE.
When amateur film-maker Lisa Lee vanishes from a Scottish seaside town, journalists Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her.
But she may not be the hapless victim everyone thinks she is. The last film she made showed her breaking into an abandoned French chateau and stumbling across a priceless Roman silver casket. The day after Lisa vanishes the casket is listed for auction in Paris, reserve price fifty million euros, with a catalogue entry that challenges the beliefs of a major world religion.
On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, religious zealotry and murder.
But someone doesn’t want them to find the missing girl… and will do anything to stop them.
My Thoughts:
I haven’t read the first book in this series that feature the main protagonists, Anna and Fin. It doesn’t actually bother me jumping into a series even though I haven’t read previous books in it although there is always that risk that you may feel like you are missing out. Whilst the storyline itself does indeed work well as a standalone, I do feel like I didn’t quite connect with Anna and Fin as whilst we do find out some of their backgrounds, the story focuses more on the case so I felt I wasn’t quite as emotionally connected as I usually would be. Will certainly be making sure to read the first book now as Anna especially has been through a lot so would love to get more into her head especially.
Anna and Fin find themselves travelling across Europe to try and discover what happened to a missing film-maker. I loved how the story starts off with the pair hotfooting it away from their partners and family whilst having a holiday. It was obvious that these two like to be adventurous although Fin comes across as much weaker emotionally wise than Anna. There are some quite quirky characters that come in the form of Bram and a boy called Marcus and for me this was where Fin and Anna started to come into their own and commandeer the story. There is certainly lots going on so you do need to keep your wits about you as the story takes different twists and turns.
Confidence may be the second book in a series but is actually the first novel I have read by the author. She has a very distinct writing voice and have been left intrigued to read more by her. If you love a story full of mystery and suspense that will keep you on your toes, then this is for you. There’s a bit of a religious, holy grail type of theme going on which certainly held my interest and look forward to seeing what the author has in store for Anna and Fin next.
My thanks to Vintage Books for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.
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