After her husband is laid to rest Poppy Lang completely checks out of her life, she is confused and lost, and unsure how to go one without him, so she disappears for a couple of days. And what she does during those two days is a complete mystery to her, every time she thinks about those days now, she draws a complete blank as to where she went or what she did. The days that follow are rough, she doesn't have the energy most days to get out of bed and be productive, so she turns to therapy, and winds up doing a stint in a psychiatric facility. After spending roughly a year there she begins to return to the land of the living, finding the courage to return home, and even going back to work at the agency her and her husband created. But between her husband's unsolved death still plaguing her and her darn subconscious stirring up memories she begins to feel herself being sucked back in to a dangerous place, one that give her answers she not prepared for...

Under My Skin is a can't miss read! With it's mind twisting, thrilling, and intense story line it's sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats, and guessing until the last page is turned!! I really enjoyed this one, it kept me engaged and flying through the pages until the wee hours of the morning!! Highly recommend!!

I requested an advanced copy of this title from NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed.

Poppy’s husband was murdered when he was out jogging. He had just his cell phone and $5 on him. In the year since he was killed with his murder still not solved, Poppy’s weird dreams are becoming more vivid and more real. She begins to wonder what is real and what is a dream.
If she can solve what happened will she be able to handle it?

I received a free e-copy of Under My Skin by Lisa Unger from Net Galley for my review.

An exciting and twisty psychological thriller that will keep you reading and wanting more.

Fantastic. Very suspensful. Another great read by Lisa Unger. I love this author and her style of writing. I will definitely recommend this book and this author

Thanks Netgalley for a copy to read and review.

What an amazing book. I loved it. Intense Hypnagogia anyone? Lucid dreams while awake. I shuddered through most of this book, what a tragedy that happens to poor Poppy. Her husband is killed one morning while out for a run, after the funeral Poppy has an episode where she is gone for days and doesn't remember anything from that time. My second book this week with such an intense tragedy .....so bear with me. My heart poured out for poor Poppy. Can we just say train wreck? I mean you can see everything coming but to be inside this girls head while she figures it out is just horrifying and amazing at the same time. The author does such a good job putting you behind this girls eyes as she fights to determine what is real and just what is a dream. I was amazed at the writing. I wanted to reach out and strangle her friend Layla at some point when she helped her get more pills, when all she needed was clarity...not more sleep. I loved it. Five huge entertainment stars.

I just could NOT get into this one... Poppy is a strange narrator and the all-over-the-place/head space/time narrative was difficult to maneuver through and kept losing me. It would have helped to have some type of clue/cue as to what was what. I appreciate that this was part of the point and the mood that the author was going for, but I found it less intriguing and mysterious than just plain confusing.

Poppy Lang’s life is in disarray two days after her husband’s funeral. She has a nervous breakdown and can’t recall where she was or what she was doing after Jack was laid to rest. These unaccounted hours are what this story is centered around.

This story picks up a year after Jack’s death. Poppy has completed a short stint in a psychiatric facility, has returned to the agency she and Jack created, and she is finally wading out of a deep mental swamp of despair. But Jack’s unsolved murder leaves Poppy in an emotional limbo and she’s haunted by her memories of him.

A year—for most people it’s a heartbeat, days rushing into weeks into months that pass in a blur. For the grieving, it’s an eternity, life aborted, days dark and slogging.

Poppy acknowledges that her marriage wasn’t perfect and that she was always in love with her husband.

A marriage is a mosaic, comprised of pieces—some broken and jagged, some shiny, some dull, some golden. The pieces don’t matter as much as the whole picture of your life together.

Along the way, Poppy’s friends and even her subconscious seem to hint that her repressed memories are a kindness, that there’s only agony laced with the truth of what she can’t remember.

“Poppy,” Jack says. He stands, wearing his running clothes that are smeared with mud and blood. The side of his head is mashed, unnatural. “Don’t do this. Keep looking for answers and you’re going to find things you won’t like. Take the advice everyone keeps giving you and let me go. I’m gone. Long gone.”

This book is divided into two parts. The first forty percent was a bit lackluster and it took extra effort to keep reading on. Part one was repetitive as Poppy drifted from one flashback to another and had difficulty distinguishing reality from hallucinations and nightmares.

Issues?
All of the secrecy, ominous bits, and obvious withholding of information from the fragile Poppy should’ve spurred me on to read this story more quickly. Oddly enough, this book was too easy to put down and didn’t grip me as strongly. Also, every time Poppy thought she was inching closer to truths about her old life with Jack, she’d self sabotage and derail by pill popping. Part of her wanted her memories back. The other part of her was very content to live in the peaceful woods of denial.

▣ The writing was solid but this story didn’t rock me, shake me, or deliver the thrill I was after. This story is perfect for the reader looking for a psychological suspense novel with a character-driven approach and featuring an unreliable narrator. For me, finding out the why behind Jack’s death was anticlimactic.

Can you tell dreams from reality? Poppy is still faced with unanswered questions a year after her husband was murdered. Was her husband the man she thought he was or was her marriage lined with deceit? What happened those days after the funeral that she cannot remember and who is the man in the hooded sweatshirt? As she tries to put the puzzle together will she discover the truth?

I quite enjoyed this book! Every time I had to put it down I couldn’t wait until I had the time to pick it up again. I didn’t find this book to be predictable at all, I thought I had it figured out a few times but was wrong every time! This book kept me on my toes and my brain stayed engaged trying to figure out dream vs reality. This is the first book I have read of Lisa Ungers, and I believe I’ll be grabbing some of her others soon.

https://readerswillread.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/under-my-skin-by-lisa-unger/

When two free spirits marry and settle down into a traditional lifestyle there are certain to be some bumps in the road. Poppy and Jack have a successful ad agency and have settled into a good, if not exciting life. Everything seems normal until Jack is brutally murdered on his morning run. Then Poppy begins to question all her memories and direct hidden meanings in everything. The question is how well do you really know anyone. The book has a good pace and some dark twists that add to the suspense. You are kept on edge until the very end.

It was difficult to set this book aside. Lisa Unger's tale of a widow searching for the who and why behind her husband's murder is extremely well-written. The pace is quick, the angst that has befallen Poppy following the loss of Jack seemingly jumps off the page. Unger makes you feel right next to Poppy as she struggles to maintain her sanity, move forward, and answer those two looming questions regardless of how reckless it might be to do so. The characters are strong and real, the friendships and bonds palpable, the deception and betrayal stunningly realistic. It all makes sense in an ending you never saw coming. In the scheme of things, that is all Poppy wanted...to uncover the sense lurking beneath Jack's murder.

Book provided by Netgalley.

Was Jack a victim of a random street crime or targeted? Poppy examines her marriage thru the lens of grief, drugs and dreams. She struggles to determine what is happening in real life (or is it a dream)?

A little slow but gained pace and kept me interested until the end. Good book.

This story is a mess. Written in first person, I couldn’t tel when the story was hallucination, flashback, present, or even wondering if it was a preview of something happening in the future. I’ve never been so confused in a story. The sad thing is that the bones of the story are great. Was Poppy’s husband’s death a random act of violence or was it a brutal part of a conspiracy?

I would love to see a complete rewrite so that the story of a grieving widow hunting for the solution to this mystery could be read with please instead of constantly going back in the story to see just what the heck is happening.

This was definitely a creepy read, but it felt like a little too much, as though the author was trying to cram every possible mysterious quality into a story. It was still interesting, but maybe not the author's strongest book.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Under My Skin is an overly long, somewhat repetitive mystery that really can't decide what it is. Ghost story? Murder mystery? Psychological drama? Family drama? Despite the redundancies, Unger manages to keep me reading.

Poppy's husband, Jack, has been murdered and now, a year later, there is still no resolution to the crime. After his death, Poppy disappears for a few days and then reappears with no memory of those lost days. She has been unable to re-emerge into her own life since her grief is so overwhelming that she self-medicates with a variety of pills and alcohol. Occasional hookups with random men she meets via a dating site add to her confusion and despair.

Supporting Poppy in these lonely sad days are Layla, her best friend from childhood, her mother, and Layla's family. Here is where the redundancy comes in. Yes, Poppy's mother was somewhat distant and she was closer to her now deceased father. Yes, Layla came from a violent family where her father abused both her mother and her. Yes, Layla was "rescued" by Poppy and her family. Yes, Layla is now married to a very successful workaholic. I got it the first time; I didn't need to read it over and over.

Poppy's loss is so all-consuming that she questions every last conversation she had with her late husband. Her self-medication also sets her into almost a hypnotic state where she envisions her husband covered in blood warning her to back off. Other bloody visions and detailed conversations with friends and strangers (real or not) add to the uncertainty of Poppy's rational mind.

All in all, Unger's novel isn't bad; it's just too repetitive.

For me the main character was too introspective. In the same place I would probably do the same, but this is a story and I just wanted to move along more. I felt the confusion and loss of Poppy, didn't know what was real or not as she did. Good story, buy dragged a little too much

I have been a long time fan of Lisa Unger. Her books NEVER disappoint and I always become to engrossed in her stories that my brain doesn't want to let go. This one is another spectacular read. I felt like I was trapped in the story and looking for the killer myself. I couldn't stop reading. I highly recommend this one.

4.5 stars

Lisa Unger is one of my favorite authors for twisty mysteries (and if you like a little spookiness, try her novels set in The Hollows). In UNDER MY SKIN, Poppy's husband has been brutally murdered. In the aftermath of his death, Poppy suffers a psychotic break, losing her memory of the days that follow his funeral. With the help of her childhood friend, Layla, Poppy tries to put her life back together and figure out the real reason her husband was murdered. As Poppy's memory of her lost days begins to return, she starts to suspect that she has been betrayed by someone close to her. Unger gives us a wonderfully complex plot with an unexpected ending.

I'm generally a fan of Ms. Unger's writing but this particular book is too dark and weird and goes on too long in this way. It becomes tedious and difficult to enjoy for me. I look forward to her next work and reading more from her. Sorry..

Some parts were a little hard to believe but overall I enjoyed this. The mystery of what happened during those missing days was most interesting to me. I felt for Poppy and the ending left me satisfied.

It’s been a year since Poppy’s husband Jack was found beaten to death in a Manhattan park and she’s still having a hard time coping. It doesn’t help that shortly after his death she disappeared for several days and came home with little to no memory of where she had been or what she had done. With the killer never caught, Poppy can find no closure or rest. She begins seeing a hooded man everywhere she goes and believes he’s following her. And she’s having the most bizarre, vivid dreams – or are they memories. As Poppy begins to wonder if she’s losing her mind, she decides the only way she’ll be able to tell if she’s going crazy or not, is to solve her husband’s murder. Unger is a first class thriller writer that will have you questioning yourself in this heart racing read