Name: Confessions on the 7:45
Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Author: Lisa Unger

About this book

Summary

Book Summary

From master of suspense Lisa Unger comes a riveting thriller about a chance encounter that unravels a stunning web of lies and deceit.

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.

Expertly plotted and reminiscent of the timeless classic Strangers on a Train, Confessions on the 7:45 is a gripping thriller about the delicate facades we create around our lives.

Membership Advantages

Reviews
"Beyond the Book" articles
Free books to read and review (US only)
Find books by time period, setting & theme
Read-alike suggestions by book and author
Book club discussions
and much more!
Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
More about membership!

Media Reviews

"Unger explores the complexities of marriage and the devastation wrought by infidelity using keenly rendered characters and a prismatic narrative...diabolically clever...Unger just keeps getting better." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Absorbing…Reminiscent of Strangers on a Train and The Grifters, Unger's novel provides a master class in plotting." - Booklist (starred review)

"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." - Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl

"Lisa Unger expertly unravels the layers of mystery and deceit at the heart of this chilling thriller. What begins with a missing woman and a chance encounter twists with each new discovery, taking a sharp look at the people we think we know. A gripping, haunting story that kept me guessing until the very end." - Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of The Last House Guest

"Confessions on the 7:45 is a masterclass in storytelling. The pacing, the characters, and the story are all pitch-perfect. This is an unforgettable novel." - Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife and He Started It

"Confessions on the 7:45 is a stellar work of psychological suspense—rich, deep, and full of surprises. Lisa Unger grabs you, pulls you in, and keeps you guessing. Read it!" - Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award-winning author of The Dark Corners of the Night

This information about Confessions on the 7:45 was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own review

lani

An antidote for these times
The day after the election -a gift to me during the process and last night. Engrossing. Compelling. Absorbing. Captivating. An easy flow with characters who were strongly developed and with pages that began to fly. Can I say it again? Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. for these days when we need to escape the realities of Covid and the election or for that matter, any day in your life. Some days we want something serious, but others we need to fly into another world and escape. The chapters are divided by the experience of different characters though not in linear order. Fear not, it did not even impinge on the flow. When Serena leaves her work late, she takes the 7:45 train to go home, and is bamboozled by another woman who tells a sad story and lures Serena into sharing her own. The woman keeps following up through text messages but eventually Serena is suspect of the women's intentions. During this process, secrets are divulged about Serena's husband, the unknown woman's mysterious background is uncovered , and the interplay between them all creates a hellish story.

ELIZABETH @Silver's Reviews

Be sure it is in your TBR
Strangers telling each other their deepest secrets starts the ball rolling as we find many characters with secrets, characters who tell lies, characters who are manipulative, and characters who aren’t who they seem.

Martha and Selena meet by chance on the train coming home, and they exchange secrets.

Martha is having an affair with her boss.

Selena saw in the nanny camera that her husband was having an affair with the nanny.

Martha replied by saying that maybe the nanny will disappear, and then the nanny does disappear.

Selena doesn't reply but regrets telling her secret.

What do all of these characters have to do with each other and with the events that have been happening?

There are quite a few characters to keep straight and characters that cross paths, but how do they all fit in and connect?

CONFESSIONS ON THE 7:45 is truly addictive. It is one surprise after another.

You won’t want to put it down because of the writing and the cunning, who-do-you-believe characters and the who-could-think-of these things that are happening.

Make sure this book makes it into your TBR for this fall. 5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Nic Hunter

Great characters intertwined
First book I have read by this author, certainly will not be the last. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and the mix of complex characters. Took me a while to get the feeling of who everyone was, each chapter switches between them all, was worried I would get confused but that was not the case. The characters were intertwined and soon made sense where they fitted into the story.
Some of the revelations you could see coming but that did not take away from the story at all, it was written in such a way as to still surprise you. The story really gripped me and I spent a few late nights after the kids were in bed reading 'just one more chapter' as I really wanted to get through the book quickly to see the outcome.
The characters are unique, some likeable and some not so much, but they all grew on me and I really had to see where the story took them.
This is one suspense story that should not be misseed, fabulously written and a great read.

Membership Advantages

Reviews
"Beyond the Book" articles
Free books to read and review (US only)
Find books by time period, setting & theme
Read-alike suggestions by book and author
Book club discussions
and much more!
Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
More about membership!

Author Information

Biography
Books by this Author

Lisa Unger Author Biography

Photo: Tanya Sharkey

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six, Last Girl Ghosted, and Confessions on the 7:45 — now in development at Netflix, starring Jessica Alba. With books published in thirty-two languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger's critically acclaimed novels have been featured on "Best Book" lists from the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Lisa Unger's Website