Title: Confessions on the 7:45
Author:  Lisa Unger  
Genre:  Suspense
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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.

Lisa Unger is a great writer, and this was very well-written and tightly plotted. But…I didn’t like the characters. Any of them. At all. Which obviously detracted from the read for me. I’d give it four stars based on the writing, but three stars because I disliked the characters so much. These people are horrible. Really.

“Martha” lives her life lying and using people and she doesn’t care who she hurts. Same with the nanny and Pop. Selena’s husband is awful to her. And Selena herself, well, she cares about her kids, but that’s about it. Apart from that, she’s selfish and unfeeling, and that made this a hard, slow read for me.

Lisa Unger is a bestselling author. Confessions on the 7:45 is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Park Row in exchange for an honest review.)

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