Member Reviews
This book grabbed me from page one and I did not want to put it down. This books flits from past to present and is also told from different point of views. It did get confusing at times but I really enjoyed reading it. The characters were well developed and you either loved or hated them
Run, do not walk, to preorder "Confessions on the 7:45", a Novel, by Lisa Unger due out October 6, 2020. I could not put this book down. I recommend to anyone who enjoys domestic noir, psychological suspense and/or Lisa Unger to purchase or borrow this book. It is a must read.
Selena Murphy is not unlike most 30ish women these days, commuting to her full-time job in Manhattan and trying to keep things running on an even keel at home. Her husband, Graham, has been less than fully engaged. One night, her commuter train becomes stalled on the rails and a stranger, a beautiful woman named Martha sitting across from her starts a conversation. Mutual, potentially destructive secrets are traded, presumably under the umbrella of anonimity. Within days, Selena's life is upended and she has concerns about the confidences she traded with "Martha." Selena's life spins even more rapidly out of control and the reader is left to wonder who, in fact, is the puppet master.
The author had me pulled in from page one. The plot was gripping and the characters, at least some of them were quite complex. I was able to see most of the twists coming, but the author did an excellent job of keeping the action fast paced so that, while I may have seen some of the destination, it was well worth the ride to get there. This book will rank high on my fall recommendations for fans of psychological suspense.
I want to thank Netgally for providing me with the uncorrected proof in return for an unbiased review.
I thought I had read another book by Unger but apparently not! And I wonder why!? I enjoyed this one a lot: the writing, the plot, the characters....
The story is told in different point of views that was able to piece together half way through. However, guessing the outcome didn’t make me enjoy it less because it was very well written.
Thank God Selena wasn’t a complete idiot! Actually, she wasn’t an idiot at all.
This was a great read!
Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this title.
A confession on the train home to a sympathetic stranger who offers to lend an ear to overworked and troubled Selena turns Selena's world upside down. Who is "Martha from the train" and why is she out to destroy Selena's "perfect" home?
Follow the twists and turns of the chameleon-like "Martha" and discover a past that not only defines her but raises the skeletons in Selena's closet as well binding the two of them together.
Confessions on the 7:45: a novel, is not your typical psychological thriller or crime novel. The story travels back and forth in time, switching between the back stories of Selena and " Martha" allowing the reader to understand each one's motivations for the decisions they've made in their lives. Building tension along the way, it draws the reader into each character's life and makes the reader wonder about the backstories of all those "perfect" family shots that are posted on social media. Are they really that perfect?
Lisa Unger’s Confessions on the 7:45 isn’t coming out until October but like Caroline Leavitt above, she has a fantastic body of work to check out right now!
I just love the premise of this book and was hooked right away.
Take a look:
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.
This book promises to take you on a trip that’s twisty and surprising and gripping. You will want to read this in a single afternoon so clear your schedule!
Coming out on October 6, pre-order here!
This took some twists I wasn’t expecting. I had to pause to make sure I was following all the threads but it was good. I really felt for some of the characters and hated some others!!
Lisa Unger EXCELLED with Confessions on the 7:45 and I devoured this book in a day because I was so invested in the story! I'm not at all surprised either because Lisa Unger has always written fast paced and thrilling reads that I've loved. But this one? It's now an all time favorite of mine!
Selena catches her husband cheating with the nanny, and then the nanny goes missing. Was her husband involved? After briefly making a connection with a stranger on the train home from work, Selena finds she has made an unwanted and creepy friendship with a woman who seems to know too much. Who's behind the missing nanny? This one will be at the top of my list for the year. Multiple points of view and multiple narratives kept the story exciting. Surprise ending. Highly recommended.
Wow! I couldn't put this one down! Confessions on the 7:45 is definitely one of the best thrillers that I've read in a long time. The character development contributes to the unique plot of this story. Told in multiple points of view, Lisa Unger delves into the past of each character. Selena and Martha meet on a train, and feel a strange connection between them. Each has a secret, and with the help of a little alcohol reveal those secrets to each other. The train ride ends, and Selena and Martha go about their lives. When Selena receives a text from her new friend the roller coaster plot begins. I highly recommend this book. Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for a copy of this title.
As always with a Lisa Unger book it's a great read. Opens like Patricia Highsmith's Strangers On a Train but takes it many levels higher. Very satisfying end.
There is always a reward in picking up any book written by Lisa Unger. This continues in her latest book "Confessions on the 7:45. I started the read with some idea that it would be a take off on Patricia Highsmith's 1950 novel "strangers on a Train" and the ensuing movie based upon the book. Ms Unger does take as a point of departure two women meeting on a commuter train and talking but than goes way beyond that. Her novel touches on many separate points and keeps her readers simply glued to the pages providing an ending not readily foreseen but definitely logical.
Selena Murphy is commuting home by train from her job in the city and sits down next to a beautiful stranger. Somehow during the trip the two women find a commonality. The other lady, Martha, confesses that she has been sleeping with her boss while Selena tells she witnessed her husband having sex with the girl engaged as the couples nanny for their two children. Neither of the two women has reached any conclusion about the next steps to take. When Selena gets home she regrets the confession made to Martha and determines that she will not see her again. Moreover, Martha was not given anything that could help her get into contact with Selena again.
A few days later Selena's nanny disappears and can't be found. The police are contacted and much to everyone's dismay begins to treat the disappearance as a possible homicide. What if anything was done to the nanny and other related facts about the lives of the two women are brought to the surface during the remainder of the novel. Stating anything further than that Ms Unger's book is beyond just an all nighter might give away details that reading this very satisfying novel will bring out. My recommendation - read it, but have coffee standing by.
Page turner for sure..read it in two days..similar vibe of Girl on the Train, but has more twists. Everyone had a dark background and seemed like a suspect
Thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. This is told from multiple points of view, which is something I'm particularly drawn too. That also keeps me reading on and on into the night. Selena is a working mom, who learns (and boy does she learn) that her husband is having an affair with their nanny. Anne is on the train, and she and Selena strike up a conversation on the train. Two people, with no connection and nothing in common who think they're just spilling secrets with someone they'll never see again. When the nanny, Geneva, disappears, they're left to wonder who was involved, how were they connected, or were they? Nicely tied up and interesting plot. I really enjoyed this one.
What did I just read????
This has got to be the most intriguing, unique and gripping story I have ever read. It had mystery, murder, infidelity, deception, secrets and so much more going on!
How Lisa Unger came up with this captivating tale is mind boggling. She really has a way at writing psychological suspense thrillers that just pull you in and won’t let you go.
Confessions on the 7:45 will take you on a very twisty journey. A journey with a outcome you never saw coming.
Definitely a must read!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author, Lisa Unger, for the opportunity to read and give my honest review about this book.
In CONFESSIONS ON THE 7:45, Lisa Unger delves into the world of infidelity, blackmail, con artists and flawed family relationships, starting off with an encounter between two women on the train, followed by a mysterious disappearance. I found myself fully absorbed all throughout the storyline, and I enjoyed the impeccable writing as the author shifts between multiple POVs, the main ones belonging to: the mother, the teenage son, the nanny and the stranger on the train.
What I had trouble with was the lack of timelines between chapters; the author doesn't precise whether a chapter belongs to the past or present time, so at several times I had the impression that all of these different events were happening at the same time when they really weren't. As a result, the story lost me a little bit around the middle.
However, this was definitely an above-average mystery with a satisfying conclusion. Have you guys read anything by Lisa Unger? Which book would you recommend?
2.5 stars. I'm rounding up, but the truth is I was pretty bored by the end of this book, and it took me forever to get through. However, it may be because this pandemic is making it hard for me to concentrate on reading anything. Audiobooks are working great, but I'm having trouble actually reading anything. On the other hand, I've had mixed feelings about Lisa Unger's past books, so it's hard to really place my feelings on this one. I loved the mysterious beginning, where Selena met a stranger on the train and confessed that her husband was having an affair with her nanny. However, the story started to drag for me once Selena's nanny disappeared, and especially when large chunks of the story were the backstory if the woman from the train. I wouldn't particularly recommend this, but I'd also take my review with a grain of salt because this is a moment when I'm having a lot of difficulty focusing.
This was a wonderful thriller with characters that draw you right in and don’t let go. The storyline flowed seamlessly and kept me glued to the pages.
Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger is a suspense novel, beginning with two seemingly-random women and two sets of secrets. Selena knows her husband is cheating, and when her new friend, "Martha" announces that she's having an affair with her boss. From here, the story gets darker and their connection seems less and less like a random encounter.
Selena is kind of the perfect wealthy wife that I couldn't help hating. You could just picture her Instagram updates of her sons' mess in one corner of her massive, decorated house, maybe with a Live-love-laugh or a Gather in the background. She had the goofy money worries of someone who owns a big house and a couple of cars in the suburbs, hires a nanny, works flexible hours in the city, etc. So, when her marriage began to show cracks, I didn't feel particularly bad for her. I didn't really care that her husband was cheating on her,
Normally, eye-rolling at the scale of the protagonist's problems is not a great sign, but it really worked here because "Martha" also though Selena's charmed life was annoying. Also, when Selena's actual problems were revealed, it showed how carefully she'd hidden her husband's behavior and her own emotions into her picture-perfect marriage.
This is another gore-free thriller. There's death but it's not gross, because there's not a lot of gory description about the body, the focus is more on what to do about this huge new secret and how to handle the death. I was really glad, because I love suspense novels with dangerous twists, but my tolerance for gore is very, very low.
This novel is so much like The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. If you like one of these books, I'm sure you'll like this one. The same themes of deception, marriages breaking down, and family secrets, in gore-free domestic suspense.
Another win from Lisa Unger. I think it is her at her best. The novel is brilliant. Fast paced, twisted plot lines keep the reader guessing until the end. Will definitely keep you up all night in a race to finish.
Wow, wow, wow!! What an intense ride this book took me on! It grabbed me from the beginning and did not let go until I finished! It was absolutely intense, in a way that literally had me up reading into the wee hours to finish! Unputdownable, is one way to describe this brutal, intense, chilling read, as I can guarantee you won’t be going anywhere once you start! This book had such realistic feelings written, I truly could see this happening exactly as Lisa Unger wrote. Shocking for sure, in fact so shocking I was either holding my breathe or gasping when I finally was able to let it go! Goosebump enduring thrills and chills! I highly, highly recommend, as it’s definitely my favorite I’ve read of Lisa Unger and if you are like me and love cheating, murder, and shocking thrillers you will love this one! Preorder today! Not to be missed!
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms!