Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Poppy has lost her memories of critical moments and this book uncovers some of them. It has twists and turns and just when you think you have worked it out, the story changed again. Can’t wait to read another one of Lisa Unger books.

This was a very enjoyable thriller. Engaging main character, twisty plot, well written. I will seek out more by this author.

This is a brilliant modern thriller. Poppy's husband Jack was murdered and she is convinced that someone is following her. A gripping story.

Thank you to Netgalley for 'Under My Skin' by Lisa Unger. Poppy's husband, Jack, was brutally murdered a year ago, whilst jogging in the park. Poppy is still haunted by his death and following a previous breakdown she now lives on pills and wine which blurs dreams and reality. She is not going to stop until she finds out who killed him and why.

A great thriller with twists and turns and likeable characters. A new author to me and I will be looking out for more of her books.

This story was a great basis for a really good psychological thriller. But I felt it got a little lost and confusing going back and forth in the timeline and having dreams and real-life parts. A good read, but a bit too convoluted for me.

3.5 stars
I loved parts of this book. I found it trying at times though as I wasn't fussed about the main character which made it hard to empathise or get invested in her struggle. I felt the 'dream' device was a bit overused also.
I can see it as a movie; I won't be surprised to see it hit the big screen in the future. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this E-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this book had me hooked from the very beginning, how can you lose days from your memory? Poppy did, just after the funeral of her husband who was brutally murdered. Seeing dead people, going into hypnagogia, not knowing what is real and what is a dream.
This was a really interesting read with twists and turns along the way. Hoping that the killer would be found. Also hoping Poppy would get rid of the pills and find out the truth.
I love a good psychological thriller and this had everything in it to make it an enjoyable but tense read.

Are you awake or are you dreaming? Is it real or imagination? Poppy's husband Jack was murdered in Central Park one morning whilst out on his run. The shock of losing her husband in such an unexpected and violent way left Poppy reeling. She couldn't function and after the funeral she disappears, reappearing a few days later in her friends apartment block, with no memory and apparently having a complete breakdown. Poppy is finally getting her life back together but those missing days and memories haunt her. All of a sudden she starts seeing things, only she doesn't know if they are real, memories or just her imaginings. In fact she is taking a mixture of pills and alcohol she has no idea what is happening. Who should she listen to? Who can she trust? and Who is following her?
This is an incredible read that keeps you enthralled and guessing right to the end. As Poppy discovers more, so do we the readers, as she hallucinates and questions herself, so you begin to think you must have missed something, surely that last page was a real event and not something that Poppy has conjured up. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes a good psychological thriller. A book that keeps you hanging even after you are sure it's all over.

I read so many good things about Lisa Unger that I was really excited about Under My Skin. However, I struggled to finish the book. Don't get me wrong, the characters are interesting and it's heartbreaking to see how Poppy feels about Jack after she loses him. However, the plot wasn't exciting and the story not quite was I was expecting. I have checked out the author on Goodreads and I'll read her other books, for sure. This one was not for me, though.

Lisa Unger can do no wrong in my eyes but Under My Skin just didn't hit the mark for me. I love her ability to describe feelings and emotions so strongly but I felt Poppy's negativity and confusion was too heavy to enjoy. For a person so heavily medicated, Poppy certainly dissected her every thought and feeling to the Nth degree and yet did nothing to help herself.

This book, though well written and promising, felt depressing to me. I liked the relationship between Poppy and Layla. Best friends since childhood with lots of dramas under the bridge, they were authentic and brutally honest with each other. That was probably the most enlightening bit of the book. Their relationship felt true where as that of Poppy and Jack seemed too idealistic to have ever been true. If Poppy were my friend I would have suggested she seek even more help in dealing with her year-long grief. I just couldn't warm to her, I'm sorry to say. This is a good story but this one just didn't ring true for me. I'm sorry.

UNDER MY SKIN kept me completely hooked from the first to the last page. I couldn’t stop reading it and Lisa Unger made sure I couldn’t by ending each chapter with a revelation or a cliffhanger that made me say: “Just another chapter!”.

Poppy Lang is a professional photographer with her own successful agency of photographers. She lives in New York City, in a beautiful and modern flat in Chelsea. She goes on online dates with handsome men and, from the outside, her life seems perfect. But Poppy is grieving. A year earlier, her husband Jack was killed while he was jogging in the park. The police think it was a mugging gone wrong, but the killer was never found and Poppy is still looking for the truth, even though there is someone who doesn’t want her to find it.

I do love unreliable characters in thrillers and Poppy is the true definition of an unreliable character: she is on pills, she drinks alcohol, and she is sleep-deprived. She drifts between reality, dream, and repressed memories. Since the story is told in first person by Poppy, we, the readers, are inside Poppy’s head. We know what she thinks, what she feels, what she sees, and, like her, we don’t know what is real, what is the product of her sleep-deprived mind, and what are memories from a past that she can’t remember.

The uncertainty of what is really going on keeps the tension always high and kept me on the edge of my seat. Among the twists and the suspense, I found also some emotional moments. It was heartbreaking reading about Poppy’s grief, her pain over the loss of the man she loved and their future together, as she replays imaginary scenarios in which if she had gone jogging with him, if he had taken a different route, he may still be alive. I actually shed a few tears.

UNDER MY SKIN is very well-written and suspenseful, it’s full of twists and surprises. It is a superb, immersive, and compulsive read that kept me glued to the page and I can’t wait to read whatever Lisa Unger is writing next.

Poppy is trying to deal with her husband Jack’s murder and she’s severely depressed.
She is losing days with no memory of them and becoming more and more confused.
Poppy is seeing a psychologist but the dreams she’s having are affecting her everyday life.
She starts to see a tall, hooded man who seems to be following her everywhere but is this real or a dream?
This psychological thriller goes back and forth and the memories can be quite confusing at times as it’s hard to tell when they happened or if they actually happened.
This is a good book but was a bit hard to follow at times.
Thanks to HQ and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Poppy’s hubby is murdered while out for a run...naturally Poppy reacts and in her traumatic state she goes missing for a few days, when she appears again she has no recollection of where she has been....a year later she is starting to remember where she went and what happened to her...and she is determined to find out the truth of why Jack was killed...then she starts getting followed......
All sounds kinda ‘standard fayre’ and the basis of a good solid psychological thriller...and all the right ingredients are there for it...and it is a good story with lots of action and thrills and spills and who, why, when and how moments....however the story is told by Poppy and as she has more and more flashbacks you never quite know if she is dreaming, telling you about a dream or is in ‘reality’...she pops various pills seemingly as often as she can which confuses her ( and the reader ) even more and I found myself re reading parts just to make sure I understood what exactly had happened, it all became a bit of a hassle at times
The characters are vivid and well described and some of them annoying and I didn’t warm particularly to any of them which didn’t help
The ending of the book confused me and am still not 100% on how it finished ( even though re read the last few pages a few times)
If you read a lot ( a real lot ) then its still one to read but if you are a casual reader then there are a lot more less confusing books of the same genre that are much more satisfying and take less effort to read

What a rollercoaster of a read! Lisa Unger has written a very good psychological thriller with lots of twists and turns which keeps you guessing and changing your mind on ‘whodunnit’ until the end.
Thank you for letting me review it and I have recommended it to my book club members.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the book in exchange for an honest review.
Lisa Unger writes a novel full of the tense anguish of her main character Poppy,whose husband has been killed and Poppy wants answers, no matter how painful. Poppy has a breakdown, self medicates and spends the time lurching from crisis to crisis until she meets someone who can help her.
There are many twists and turns as you read the book and it is only at the end that the truth comes out and justice is served. Only then can Poppy and her childhood friend move forward.
Highly recommended.

Poppy’s husband Jack was killed whilst out jogging in Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Poppy is not coping with her loss and is dependent on sleeping pills, unsure whether her dreams are dreams or reality that she has forgotten about.

It was a real life sliding doors moment, if she had of gone for a jog with Matt would he still be alive?

This story was like peeling an onion, every layer revealed another layer as memories were retrieved. I wasn’t sure who was more confused with what was going on me or Poppy!!

Although I did get confused,I loved this book, I couldn’t put it down. The link between Poppy’s memories and Jack’s murder was written in a way that grips you and keeps you engrossed till the final page.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

This book is one he'll of a page turner, unputdownable I was hooked from the first page.
Poppy's husband was murdered while out jogging. A year after his death and still in therapy is told to start writing a dream diary as her dreams are so vivid and at times disturbing but are they dreams or are they memories ????
That is the only teaser you are getting about this book.
There are so many twists and turns, you think you know what has happened the WAM you are off in another direction.
I actually thought that I had solved it but I was wrong.
This is my type of book it kept me thinking and reading. Once again my husband has been a kindle widower.
I highly recommend this book. An addictive psychological thriller.
I LOVED IT. Lisa Unger has done it again !!!!!!!!
I would like to thank the author Lisa Unger, HQ and Net.galley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for giving an honest review.

Wow! What a fabulous relief to open this treasure after a good few recent disappointments. I found this to be a riveting read that just pulled me in and wouldn't let go. I couldn't think of anything else whilst I read it, so much did it invade my brain.

The lead character, Poppy, is a grieving widow, whose husband was brutally murdered and who is self medicating to survive. She's being followed, or, is she? Someone has been inside her apartment, or, have they? Her friends and family seem to want to help and support, but, do they really?
She's having vivid dreams / hallucinations and is determined to do all she can to find out what happened to her husband, but, she seems to be in danger. This book is a murder mystery, but, it's so much more.

Frustrating as she can be at times, this read rollicks along and I literally could not put it down. It's visceral in it's intensity, heartbreaking, confusing and wonderful and you feel you're grieving with her alongside learning from her reflections on life and marriage; for example "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"

I loved this book. I feel bereft now I've finished and despite having a backlog of books to review I need to take this evening to be with Poppy, just a while longer.

5* and thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollinsUK and Lisa Unger for the opportunity to preview in exchange for my honest review.

Join us on the Under My Skin blog tour, on the 18th October where we will be releasing our review...