A dark, engaging and entertaining historical thriller.
I liked the plot, the solid mystery and how the characters was developed.
The well researched historical background was rich of details and fascinating.
I will surely read other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all opinions are mine.

I enjoyed this book. I found it a real page turner and I really wanted to find out more about Cora Burns. It is quite Victorian gothic and Cora is not an easy person to like, she is no paragon. However, given her terrible start in life it's not surprising.
Cora was born to a woman in jail and brought up in the workhouse. She is an outsider and seems unable to make friends until one day a new girl called Alice appears who bonds with her and they spend all their time together and hatch a plan to hurt one of the toddlers. As a result Cora spends much of her time in the infirmary and never sees Alice again. On leaving the workhouse she goes to work in the laundry of the asylum where she has an affair with a stable hand, who shoots off when he realises Cora is pregnant. Cora conceals her pregnancy and gives birth in a laundry room but is caught in the act of trying to strangle her just born child leading to her incarceration. On release she takes up a position as a maud in the house of Mr Jerwood, who studied her brain dimensions and took a photo of her whilst she was in prison. There she meets Violet, a "ward" of Mt=r Jerwood's but all is not waht it seems. Cora has one possession she was given when she left the workhouse, a half piece of a bronze medal that she assumes Alice left for her, but was actually left by her mother and she discovers a box of similar medals in Mr Jerwood's home. What can it all mean? Cora determines to find out.

I think the "conviction" in the title of the novel is not just about Cora's jail conviction but also about the convictions she holds about her own life and how they may be unreliable. If you liked Jane Harris's "Observations" and "Gillespie and I" tand slightly unrelaible narrators hen I think you'd also like this book. I thought the ending was a little rushed and a bit too "neat" but itw as stilla great read.

A book set in the Birmingham area in the late 1800s. A time of poverty and hardship. Cora Burns may have been born in a prison but she will break free from her past. Well written and a very enjoyable read.

I was intrigued and captivated by this book. Cora Burns faces a constant struggle against her own emotions and the circumstances she finds herself in, in an 1800s society where attitudes to poor women are at best pitying and misguided and at worst, dangerous and malicious. The author never takes the ‘easy’ option of having a man rescue Cora, which I was pleased to see. She’s often not a sympathetic character but her flaws are created and magnified by the surroundings she finds herself in. She develops as a person throughout the book, in a believable and interesting way. One plot twist was quite obvious in my opinion, but only added to the tension of the novel.
The addition of scholarly articles and journal entries by an asylum doctor are an interesting layer to the overall story and help to set the action in a social and medical context.

A dark book that is full of mystery and questions. The reader gains an insight into 1900 century laws, women’s prisons, workhouses and mental asylums, issues and problems that are not often aired. Cora, the heroine, has a very complicated character but this is understandable after the misery and degradation she had suffered. This book is different in that Cora shares her innermost thoughts with the reader. Thoughts that are not pleasant, thoughts that should not be shared. Again and again I was astonished by what was going through her head and her actions. Cora stop this is not the way things are done but if you have no guidance or shown no love how would you behave.

I was unable to put this book down and I was rewarded by the amazing climax.

A debut novel by Carolyn Kirby and I’ll be interested to read more by this author. Just love a historical novel that gives you a sense of living in the era it’s set in, namely Birmingham in the 1880’s. A dark almost gothic thriller of a girl Cora Burns born to an unfortunate inmate of a Birmingham gaol, brought up to work in the workhouse, but with a desire to discover the truth about herself. Reminded me of Little Doritt in some ways. Having a love of photography I was particularly interested in the shop just off New Street, an area I’m familiar with. All in all a good read and appears historically factual.

Thanks to Netgalley the author and publishers for a copy of this book.

I think it was a story with interesting characters and plot. However, the content was a bit too dark for me. I liked the historical details and intriguing opening of the book. Sometimes, it moved a bit slower to my taste.
But, if you like historical fiction, this is a good book.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby. I liked the way the story was interlinked with 'extracts' from a medical journal which shone light on the thinking of the day around nature versus nurture. Having studied psychology I was particularly interested in this. Highly recommended!

A very unusual story with some very curious characters. Persevered but not for me.A lot of historical detail.

Cora Burns has to be one of the most interesting characters I have read about for a while. Born to a convict in Birmingham gaol she didn't have the best start in life. Moving from there to grow up in a workhouse, incarcerated in gaol herself, before being released to make her own way in life. A path that takes her on the most interesting journey when she eventually winds up working for scientist Thomas Jerwood. But is there more to this appointment than on first viewing? As she befriends Violet, a young girl who appears to be the subject of Jerwood's experiments, she starts to see a bigger picture emerge. Is it really just coincidence that she ended up there, or is there something much more duplicitous going on?
This is a book that can be read on many levels. There is the main story which is intriguing and captivating in itself and the book can be satisfying just on that basis. But then there are layers, one of which skirts the whole nature/nurture thing but isn't really something I can divulge much about here for fear of spoilers. There is so much going on, both morally and ethically that I firmly believe that this book would raise some great debate and would make a great book club read.
The plot is quite convoluted but it is tightly crafted and so very well executed that, although I did spend quite a bit of time in a fog of confusion, there was enough intrigue to hold me captive util such time as the truth eventually all came out.
It's funny how you can be more forgiving of a character when you know where they came from. Even though Cora did some very wicked things along the way, I couldn't help feeling both sympathy and empathy for her and I managed to get an emotional connection pretty much from the off. Especially with regard to the way she desperately tried to find her childhood friend Alice. Characters have to be strong in a character driven book such as this one and every one was so well drawn and each played their parts to aplomb.
The time and place depicted in the book were also very well described. Set in the 1880s, the author manages to get across the feeling of poverty and affluence that divided people in these times. I'm not overly familiar with this time but everything I read felt real and it is obvious that the author has done their research.
When I finished the book, completely satisfied by the way, I did the usual and went to check the author's back catalogue. Shocked was an understatement when I found out that this is the author's debut novel, such was the quality of what I had read. If this is the standard she has set herself, I really can't wait to see what she has in store for her next book. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I was completely intrigued and enthralled by Cora's complex and twisty story and highly recommend it to lovers of historical fiction.

Reminiscent of Jane Harris' The Observations. My full review will be published on my blog as part of the Blog Tour to which I consider myself privileged to have been invited.

This was a strange and arresting novel that expertly highlighted the chasms between classes, the have and have-nots, and also details the processes in which we can drive ourselves crazy, or are driven crazy.
Cora is a hard to like character, but it doesn't affect my wanting to know more about her. I felt for her, and even though she came across a mite sociopathic, I still rooted for her solving her mysteries.
The writing could be a little tighter in places - my attention wandered at times and I feel some distinction needs to be made clearer between thoughts and actions and speech. I'd also cut down and shorten the 'letters' part - I wanted to get back to Cora!
Recommended for fans of asylums in the earlier part of the twentieth century (and who isn't?!).

I found this book too disturbing to quite love it, but I think that says more about me than it does about the book. It's well written and (I get the impression) terrifically well researched. It has a lot to say about how little scope for freedom women of the time had; how easily their lives could be destroyed. And about how men of the time saw women and children, particularly those from poor backgrounds, as lesser creatures – fit subjects for experimentation. I felt for Cora and I was glad the book reached the ending it did. Yet at the same time, I could never quite get past the incident from her past, which was truly horrific and meant I wasn't sure if I was even right to want the best for her. In addition, I saw most of the key twists/beats coming. Nevertheless, this is certainly a good book and one that I would recommend to those who like historical fiction with a strong undercurrent of darkness.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this advanced copy. This is a hauntingly dark book and one that draws you in from the very first page. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have no hesitation in recommending it.