I don’t recall reading much of Lisa Unger’s work, but I am somewhat of a sucker for the plucky heroine in danger genre, so I was happy to get a copy of Under My Skin from Harlequin-Hanover Square Press and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I did read this book pretty much in one day, so I was able to keep on track in terms of the plot line, but I wonder if I had been reading a bit at a time over a span of several days (or more) if I might have gotten lost in the story.

The plucky heroine is Poppy, whose beloved husband Jack was murdered while on an early morning run, which Poppy elected to sleep through. The event was so traumatic for her that she had a breakdown and doesn’t remember anything about a stretch of time. She only knows she was found by her uber-wealthy friend Layla and was hospitalized.

The story includes both the reality of Poppy’s life (about a year after the breakdown as she tries to regain the missing time) and her dreams/memories/imagination. Poppy is desperate to get it together: when she looks in the mirror she sees “…a tired, wrung-out version of the person she used to be.”

Poppy and Jack were both photographers who had successfully traveled the world before they settled down and started an agency (also successful), but it’s a bit unclear whether they both were completely happy. And Poppy knows that “Everyone wants you to think their relationship is perfect. But nothing’s perfect, no matter what they post on Facebook.”  And Poppy’s view of the world is that of a photographer: “Our faces, our body language, the changing light of a room, every second is different than the one before or after The photographer chooses one among the infinite. It’s both a lie, a trick of light, and an irrefutable truth.”

I loved the writing and the use of language. I am not good at solving the mystery in a book – generally, I get an “aha!” at the end rather than figuring it out, so it isn’t a surprise that I didn’t figure this one out—also, there were several red herrings and plot twists which were good. Personally, I viewed Poppy’s uncertainty about the reliability of her memories/hallucinations as a normal result of the tons of pills she was washing down with alcohol, and thought she was an addict who needed to get straight if she really wanted to get it together.

I had some mixed feelings about the end, but can’t see how another resolution might have worked. I liked it, and it entertained me and made me feel and think, which all adds up to four stars.