The Main Character by Jaclyn Goldis

 Domestic drama and mystery aboard the Orient Express.

A unique premise -- a young woman has agreed to be the main character in a book written by a famous author. In addition to the monetary compensation, the author has rewarded Rory with a lavish train trip aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient Express. In addition, Ginevra Ex has surprisingly invited along Rory's brother, Max, her best friend, Caro, and her ex fiance, Nate. They all board the train and head to Positano with several stops along the Italian Coast. Why are these people along on this trip? It feels like some sort of game full of secrets, lies, and manipulation. 

Wow, a lot of characters and a very long, involved backstory about Rory and Max's father and Russian history. Parts of that seemed overly long and I wasn't very interested in most of it. Actually, I wanted more about the iconic train, but the characters spent little time aboard. There were some twists and turns, and some were predictable. Lots of emotional baggage to unpack. I didn't really care for any of the characters and was left unsatisfied by the climax and the conclusion. In short, I wish different things had happened to the characters than what I read! 

The narrative is told from alternating character points of view and there are timeline jumps. I cared more about the modern-day story than the deep dive into the past. The resolution of the mystery seemed rather anticlimactic. 

I listened to the audiobook while also following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. The audiobook was quite unsatisfactory overall despite having 5 narrators. The reason being that the person who voiced the character of Caro sent me over the edge with her shrill voice. The other females were hard to keep straight but fortunately I was able to tell who was speaking due to the chapter titles in the e-book. Normally the experience of reading and listening enhances the experience for me but toward the end I had to turn off the audio as it was very irritating.

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre.tags - mystery, drama, secrets and lies, Russia, Jews, train trip, Orient Express