“Intricate and nuanced—on par with the best top-flight psychological suspense.” —L.A. TimesINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom master of suspense Lisa Unger comes a riveting thriller about a chance encounter that unravels a stunning web of lies.Selena Murphy is commuting home on the train when she strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as … conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon 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.
Then the nanny disappears.
As Selena is pulled into the mystery of what happened, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, she begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she’ll discover…
Looking for more gripping suspense? Check out Last Girl Ghosted, also from New York Times bestselling thriller writer Lisa Unger.
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Really good book with good characters.
Very entertaining. Love her books
Lisa Unger is one of the best in the business…and this one may be her best yet. The suspense is unbearable and unpredictable.
All in all this was a good book. At times, I felt it moved a little too slow. The characters had lots of depth and were interconnected with a very interesting twist. First I’ve read by this author, but won’t be the last.
I liked this one well enough. The author has great control over her writing craft. Her characters are well drawn and three dimensional, one of the more difficult aspects of writing. This book is only three stars out of five for me I almost put down several times but hung on. For me there were too many points of view that caused the story’s wheels to spin in place. For example, the Hunter character his entire chapter came down to one paragraph needed to advance the book’s plot, the rest could’ve been cut, and book would’ve stood on its own. There are several other points of view that are the similar in construct. Pearl’s point of view didn’t have a logical thread to the story, (at least for me–maybe I missed it) until page 150 when I realized who Pearl became later on. Too much backstory slowed the forward motion as well. When the story was dealing with Ann and Serena I was right there fully invested. Overall, I think what happened was that the author mixed a thriller structure with a mystery structure and it didn’t work for me.
And there was the plotline; a well-used trope (most recently seen in the book Last Flight by Clark) that mirrors the great Hitchcock movie (Hitchcock took it from Patricia Highsmith’s book) Strangers on a Train. I have no problem with author using old plots and breathing fresh air into them as Unger did here. She took the plot and made it her own. Cut away all the unrelated machinations in this one and it would be a killer book. Unger writes at a master’s level and I will be reading more of her books. This was my first.
Vivienne Leheny
4/5 Stars
Multiple POV & Alternating Timelines
What an interesting story! I did come to guess some of what might unfold, but I didn’t figure it all out. This book opens with a bang and draws you into the story quickly, holding your attention with a solid pace. The ending was quite interesting, especially when you find out the motivation behind the circumstances.
There are parts that get bogged down a bit because of how many POV there are, especially when you’re trying to figure out how they fit into the grand scheme of the story. I think two of them could have easily been written into a main character’s POV with the same outcome. With that said, I enjoyed in-depth look at several of the characters backstories, it really helped give dimension to some of the questionable characters.
: While I enjoyed this on audiobook, there were parts that were harder to follow due to the number of POV and the narrator didn’t really distinguish between them with variations of tone.
The characters in this psychological thriller grabbed me right away. Told in multiple POVs, we are first introduced to Selena, a woman taking the train home from work who is angry and frustrated because she’s just watched on the nanny cam as her serial philanderer husband Graham sleeps with their nanny (for the second time that she’s observed on video.) She shares her frustrations with a complete stranger sitting beside her on the train. And from there, things begin to unravel, especially after her nanny Geneva goes missing. There were some other interesting POV voices. As I was reading, I wasn’t quite sure who to trust—which is my favorite kind of psychological thriller.
There are lots of characters to keep up with in this one, and the POV switches frequently. My one quibble was that in a few places I felt like I needed a notepad to keep track of who was who (this did get better towards the end as more was revealed), and occasionally felt like I’d missed something because there were just so many side stories going on that detracted from the main plot. Also, (and this may have just been an issue with the audiobook version)…
SPOILERS…
I was left really confused with the POV switches and whether the story was being told chronologically, or we were flip flopping in time with a bunch of flashbacks. This was not made clear in any way in the audiobook version, but towards the end there was a HUGE reveal that wouldn’t make sense unless some of the POV scenes (Pearl’s with her “sister”) were actually flashbacks that take place before the first chapter of the book begins. That said, it was also a cool twist. Overall a very good thriller with great twists and a few clarity issues.
A chance meeting — or is it? — with a stranger on a train tilts Selena Murphy’s tidy world upside-down in this taut, beautifully-written novel. What elevates Lisa Unger’s psychological thriller to a new level are her shrewd insights into the dynamics of a seemingly ideal marriage.
I raced through Confessions on the 7:45, completely absorbed in the mystery and intrigue of the story as it kept me guessing. I found it compelling, dark, twisty and a definite must-read!
The story had similarities to Strangers on a Train. Inspired me to purchase the Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Confessions on the 7:45 is about men. Men who become husbands and fathers. Some make better husbands than fathers while others make better fathers than husbands. In this the reader will discover there are different layers to men and the women who get tangled into there darkness.
Selena and Graham have a perfect family, a beautiful house, and a happy life. Everyone envied them. However, over the years Selena ignored Graham’s indiscretions. Afterall, men are weak animals easily swayed by desire and need.
Selena was a good mom, a good wife a successful career woman. After the boys she decided to return to the workplace wanting to be both a mom and a career woman. So she hired a nanny. Geneva was good with the boys and the boys adored her. Graham was laid off, sure he could’ve taken care of the boys, but he needed to be available for interviews while scouting other jobs.
The cracks started to expose buried long forgotten secrets that could no longer be ignored. The once perfect family was seen for who they really were after Selena confessed to a woman on the train.
Lisa Unger gave readers a clever set of circumstances. I kept guessing from the beginning trying to decipher what was going on. Lisa delivered a stunning story about revenge, infidelity, lies, and secrets. She alternated the past and the present flawlessly. Lisa’s writing voice and language exhibits mad skills. She’s talented with her wicked tongue providing sharp illustrative words. She produced a dialogue driven story focusing on a few characters.
In this story you will hear confessions which are truths about men and women in any given situation. This was a complex story by that I mean it had many layers. In order to get inside those layers you had to be a patient reader and allow Lisa to give you the information when she was ready.
I love when a story falls into place like this one has. Hooked is an understated word to describe the steady pace of activity that propelled this story forward. It was exciting. I was eager to learn every aspect of these characters lives. Lisa Unger wrapped me up in her talented words transporting me into her world. This right here is what I look for, not a genre, but a style of writing where a writers voice carries the words propelling the story in a steady pace of activity. Lisa engages the reader with thought provoking ideas while directing the reader into a forward motion of suspense.
This book confirms what I already knew from my first read that Lisa Unger is an author to one-click. I’m adding her to my favorites to stay informed upon new releases.
It’s amazing what a big imagination and creative ingenuity can do for a story. This is exactly the type of writing voice I’m in the mood for.
Narrated by Vivienne Leheny. This is an unabridged audiobook. 12 hours and 29 minutes audio time in English. Let’s not forgot the voice that brought it all together, Vivienne performed this book as a solo narrated. With headphones on and her voice filling my ears I was transported into the story.
Vivienne is an audiobook narrator and voiceover actor.
I like listening to audiobooks while following along with my ebook. I’m not a lazy reader I just prefer hearing someone put a voice to the characters so I can focus on other aspects of the story.
Author wonderfully weaves a cast of characters into a twisty story that will keep you turning the pages deep into the night. Don’t pass this one by. It was good. One of the best things the author did was nicely wrap up the ending. You get a general direction that the characters took . . . . . . . I loved that.
Could not stop reading!
Audiobook
Title: ℎ 7:45
Author:
Number of Pages: 368
Length of Audiobook: 12.5ℎ
Genre: ℎ ℎ
Publication Date: 10/6/2020
Rating: (4 stars)
This is the first audiobook I have ever listened to. I chose an audiobook due to my library having 9 holds on a physical copy.
So in this book we follow Selena who is commuting home when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes a conversation with a stranger named Martha who confesses she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss, while Selena confesses she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny.
It was alot different listening to an audiobook when I am so used to reading a physical book. I thought the narrator that was chosen did a wonderful job telling the story. I enjoyed the pacing of the story. This was a unique plot that I haven’t seen written before, that would be a great movie that I would pay to see. Lisa’s writing had me feeling like I was immersed in the book as one of the characters. I highly recommend this book to all thriller readers, both as a physical book and an audiobook.
Two strangers meet on the 7:45 train and confess a secret to the other, thinking they will never meet again. Such a harmless chat leads to the unravelling of Selena’s life as her nanny disappears and the police seek answers. This psychological thriller is the usual domestic noir of the perfect family that collapses with all the lies and subterfuge. Whilst a promising premiss to begin and despite Lisa Unger’s capable storytelling, the final product does not hold up. Not one of her better works and only a three-star rating. As an independent reviewer, my thanks to the author for a copy gratis prior to publication. All opinions expressed herein are freely given and totally my own.
I was a little confused with the beginning of this book, but it’s a Lisa Unger book and I love her books. So, I continued with my reading and am so glad I did. Sometimes you just have to wade into the water more to see what’s going on.
Selena Murphy, whose husband is sleeping with the nanny, gets on a train, meets a stranger and strikes up a conversation, telling her about her husbands infidelity. They then part ways and Selena finds out that the nanny is missing. Did her meeting on the train have anything to do with it? I could not tell and it kept nagging at my mind exactly what happened.
Thats what so great about an Unger book. You cant guess who done it…..love the story, a great #fourstar read.
Wonderful suspense. The author kept me engrossed in the web of her plot and guessing how it was all going to work out in the end. Bonus that on top of everything, there was a very satisfying ending as well. 🙂
Good book. Read it in 3 days!
Lisa Unger does a great job of twisting intricate sub-plots into a delightful tangled web of deception, flawed characters, and bad behavior. With conspiracies reaching through time and space, she paints a picture that is both relatable and terrifying.
If you enjoyed “Girl on A Train” then this one is a must. Kept my interest and was almost read in one sitting. Highly recommend.