Confessions on the 7:45

Update: finished the book in one day. I think it’s Lisa Unger’s best novel yet, and I was thrilled with the setting at the end of the book (fans of her past novels will be too). Loved it, loved it, loved it!! Original review half way thru the book: A part of me wants to keep tearing through this book because it’s so good and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Another part of me doesn’t want it to end. I’m a huge fan of Lisa Unger but this book is different somehow and I love the way the story, or more accurately stories, are unfolding. Books where the author bounces back and forth between too many storylines and characters are sometimes frustrating to read, Ill find myself having to use x-ray to remind myself who is who or what their relationships are to each other, but I’m having no such trouble with this one. The stories and characters are easy to follow as they unfold at a perfect pace and I’m so hoping the second half of the book is as good as the first. Will update review when I’ve finished the book!

Where to start? Unlikable characters, implausible plot line, tired trope of cheating husbands. I lost track of the number of eye rolls I endured getting through this book. And if different characters had not kept repeating the SAME information to the reader, the book would have been about 100 pages shorter. I have read so many superb mysteries during this pandemic. This is not one of them.

This psychological suspense will have you scratching your head from the first page to the last. Powerfully written, the story is told in rotating first-person accounts by chapters, not always in chronological order. This tense drama surrounds Selena, a professional mother of two and her chance encounter on a train with a strange woman, while coming home from work late at night. Within days, Selena\’s whole life will change forever in a series of unimaginable events that will shake her world and everything she thought she knew. Masterfully designed, Lisa Unger\’s convoluted plotline weaves a suspenseful tale through a labyrinth of seemingly isolated events that converge upon Selena, threatening to tear her family apart and challenging her identity and safety. No one is safe. Nothing is for sure. Set in primarily in the greater New York City area, the story follows three major characters, all women, each struggling to find happiness amid the unpredictable and corrupt people around them. I liked how the author\’s storytelling momentum forced me to keep reading into the unknown, while never getting all the answers and only raising more surprising questions. People are dying and disappearing under suspicious circumstances. Lines between victims and villains blur until all motives and facts get questioned. Lies, power struggles, and manipulations are everywhere. Some distracting things interrupted my reading experience. First, I kept getting Selena and another character (Stella) confused with each other, having to stop to reset my context, wishing the author had used more obviously different names. Ugh! Some of the language overpowers the storytelling experience unnecessarily, which others might find objectionable. The story\’s abrupt changes among characters created an unsettling tension and uncertainty that made this a fun reading experience. The Audible narration supplement was especially well done. I did appreciate the satisfying and complete ending that eventually answered most of my questions.

Be careful to whom you tell your darkest secrets… Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat, and their connection is fast and easy. The woman introduces herself as Martha and confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again. But days later, Selena’s nanny disappears. Soon Selena finds her once-perfect life upended. As she is pulled into the mystery of the missing nanny, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, Selena begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she’ll discover. My Thoughts: Our story begins after Selena discovers her husband’s latest infidelity via nanny cam. In an unexpected action, she shares her feelings with a woman she meets on her homeward commute in a situation that has a “stranger on the train” vibe. Afterwards, she asks herself why she would do that, but admits that she felt a unique connection to the woman. A good listener, perhaps? As Confessions on the 7:45 unfolds, we learn, via alternating narrators, the secrets of several assorted characters, all of whom seem completely unrelated to one another. Along the way, we begin to suspect that these lives will eventually intersect, and as we start to piece the puzzle together, the odd connections begin to make sense. I loved another surprising reveal at the end as the characters walked off into the “sunset” to a place familiar to Unger fans. A delightful and intense book that held me hostage throughout. 5 stars.

I kept thinking about this book for days after I finished reading it – that was the sort of impact it had on me. There were several strong characters and although it was not clear what their roles were and how they fitted into the storyline to begin with, it soon became clear as the story was woven together. I kept wanting to read as fast as my eyes and brain would let me so that I could find out what was going on and I was not disappointed as there were revelations and twists right to the end. A highly recommended read.

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