Nominated for the 2019 Edgar Award, Hammett Prize, and Macavity AwardPopSugar’s Best Mysteries & Thrillers to Read in Fall 2018 CrimeReads Best Book of 2018Booklist’s Best New BookOne of the Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2018 from CrimeReadsOne of Fall 2018’s Most Exciting New Mysteries & Thrillers by BookishBookbub’s One of the Biggest, Most Anticipated Thrillers of the Season, Fall … Biggest, Most Anticipated Thrillers of the Season, Fall 2018 Best Mystery Book Pick, and Editors’ Pick
Library Journal 2018 Killer Thriller
From New York Times bestselling author and master of suspense Lisa Unger comes an addictive psychological thriller about a woman on the hunt for her husband’s killer.
What if the nightmares are actually memories?
It’s been a year since Poppy’s husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan’s Riverside Park. In the immediate aftermath, Poppy spiraled into an oblivion of grief, disappearing for several days only to turn up ragged and confused wearing a tight red dress she didn’t recognize. What happened to Poppy during those lost days? And more importantly, what happened to Jack?
The case was never solved, and Poppy has finally begun to move on. But those lost days have never stopped haunting her. Poppy starts having nightmares and blackouts—there are periods of time she can’t remember, and she’s unable to tell the difference between what is real and what she’s imagining. When she begins to sense that someone is following her, Poppy is plunged into a game of cat and mouse, determined to unravel the mystery around her husband’s death. But can she handle the truth about what really happened?
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Nearly a year ago, Poppy’s husband, Jack, was murdered during his morning run. His murder remains unsolved, and she is still struggling to move on. During the days that followed his death and funeral, Poppy suffered a nervous breakdown and doesn’t remember a few days of her life. Where did she go? What did she do? And, whom did she meet?
Consumed by grief and the life they should have had together, Poppy suffers from insomnia and when she does sleep, she has horrible nightmares. But, could the nightmares be revealing her missing memories?
Gripped from the very first pages, I felt compelled to know more about Poppy, her life with Jack, and her best friend, Layla, who was more like a sister. Poppy’s immense grief was palpable, and I felt her pain while reading. Then, when their backstory was revealed, I felt their happiness and deep love for each other. Don’t miss this emotional, dark, riveting tale set in New York City!
Lastly, I also would recommend my favorites by this author: Beautiful Lies (5 stars) and The Red Hunter (4 stars).
I received an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
Location: NYC
Great read. Have read this author before and liked her books, this one is the best story yet. Page after page thus woman is chasing something, someone, remembering things. A best friend who is there for her no matter what. Slowly, ever so slowly she works through things in her mind and finds out that that life is not always what it seems, especially with those closest to her.. A stunning and very surprising ending.
Under My Skin by Lisa Unger
Once again Lisa Unger does not disappoint her readers. She has written a story that drew me in from the start. The characters are so real, their personalities very interesting and the relationships are true.
Following her husband’s murder, Poppy Lang suffers a nervous breakdown. Poppy receives treatment and tries to resume a “normal” life. However, she is haunted by the murder and the missing memories she cannot seem to recover.
The need that drives Poppy is what drives the story. Is everything as it seems? Is everyone who they seem to be be? What is real memory and what is a dream?
This is a psychological thriller that loops and turns and the reader is unsure what is real and what is imagined, just as Poppy struggles. It is well written and the anxiety and tension mounts and ebbs through the story.
I highly recommend this book to psychological mystery thriller fans. Thank you to #Netgalley and #Harlequin Publishing for approving my request for an ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Nearly a year ago, Poppy Lang’s husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan’s Riverside Park. The police have not found his killer and, given that Jack didn’t have any known enemies, are investigating the case as a random attack.
Immediately after Jack’s funeral, Poppy suffered a psychotic break brought on by grief and despair. She disappeared for several days before turning up wearing an uncharacteristically tight red dress. She was confused and did not remember the time she was gone, with her memories of the days leading up to Jack’s death sketchy, at best.
Poppy is trying to move on with her life, but is haunted by those lost days. She’s been self-medicating — numbing her grief and pain with alcohol and nondescript pills supplied by her best friend, Layla. Not to mention the sleeping pills that her therapist has prescribed. Poppy is having nightmares and experiencing blackouts. She can’t distinguish between reality and her imagination, unsure if she is hallucinating or finally recalling events that her mind suppressed in order to protect her. Now she thinks a strange man in a hooded sweatshirt is following her, although she’s not completely convinced he is real.
Poppy’s need to know the truth about her life with Jack and his death propel her manic search for information. As the story opens, she is barely functioning, running the business she and Jack founded by day, but retreating most nights to the home of her friends Layla and Mac where she accepts the pills that Layla supplies and mixes them with wine before taking a sleeping pill and passing out. She can barely stand to spend any time in the posh apartment she and Jack purchased but did not move into prior to his death. Now unpacked boxes are the main decor. She has begun dating — at Layla’s urging — but she is clearly not ready to let go of her marriage to Jack and begin a new relationship.
Layla and Poppy have been best friends since childhood. Layla comes from a dysfunctional family characterized by abuse. Indeed, when the girls were 16, Poppy and her father rescued Layla and from her abusive father and Layla mostly lived with Poppy and her parents. Layla has expressed a determination to break the cycle of abuse and, by all appearances, has succeeded. She is fabulously wealthy, thanks to having married Mac, a successful hedge fund manager, and given up her career to raise their two children. Layla is fiercely protective of Poppy to the point of being controlling.
Bits and pieces of memories seem to be returning to Poppy. Or are they episodes of hypnogogia (the transitional phase between sleep and wakefulness, or between wakefulness and sleep) caused by sleep deprivation and stress. Her mental state make her a compelling but wholly unreliable narrator. She is empathetic — after all, she lost her husband in the most horrifically imaginable way — although less so as Unger reveals details about the state of Jack and Poppy’s marriage. Unger takes readers on a heartbreaking but believable journey into Poppy’s splintered psyche. No marriage is perfect, including Jack and Poppy’s, but were their forces actively threatening its survival? Were those pressures coming from outside the marriage or within it? Had Poppy made different decisions that fateful morning, she is convinced that she could have saved Jack, but must understand and acknowledge the way life works. One split second, a different course of action can result in a different outcome, but we must live with the choices we made at the time.
The overriding question presented is: What if Poppy’s nightmares are actually memories being gradually restored to her? And if so, what do they mean? Will they bring her the answers she needs about what happened to Jack in order to regain her ability to function without the aid of drugs and alcohol, and enable her to finally let go of Jack and forge a future for herself.
The story moves at an unrelenting pace as Unger makes nearly every supporting character a potential suspect. But what were their motives? And how are they connected to the one valuable lead Detective Grayson, a dedicated NYC cop who is determined to keep Jack’s case from languishing among thousands of cold cases, has uncovered thus far?
Under My Skin is Unger at her best. She takes readers down an emotional rabbit hole with Poppy as she reveals clues to what is real and what is not at deftly-timed intervals that demand continued reading. Thus, Under My Skin is un-put-down-able. Her insights into Poppy’s emotional struggles resonate and may well inspire readers to question their own choices, how their lives might have been different. And Unger provides an action-packed, but emotionally satisfying conclusion to Poppy’s story making Under My Skin one of the best books of 2018.
Thanks to Net Galley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
Lisa Unger draws you in from page one of this thriller. A woman tries to put back the pieces of her life after suffering a horrific loss. Unfortunately, she is missing pieces of her memory and we learn just enough to keep us guessing as she fights to get these back. This is a gripping story and an amazing introduction to this author for me. #UnderMySkin #NetGalley
This is a psychological thriller about a woman named Poppy. Poppy’s husband Jack is murdered one morning while he is out running.
Poppy wants to find out who the killer is and why he/she killed her husband. She is having blackouts and has lost all memory of a couple of the days following Jack’s murder. She is abusing pills and alcohol, she thinks someone is stalking her. I found the story a bit confusing at times. It wasn’t a bad story but not one of my favorites by Lisa Unger.
Good read by Lisa Unger! See my review at: https://notenoughtimeforbooks.blogspot.com/2018/08/under-my-skin-by-lisa-unger.html
What a twisted, mind bending, tragic, emotional story! Poppy is searching for her husbands killer while grief stricken and going through a breakdown complete with memory loss trying to connect the dots and search for the truth! Great thriller!
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.
I was really disappointed – I just could NOT get into this one (and I normally really like Unger’s style)… 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.
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.