Under Your Skin by Rose McClelland

Val Penny ♦ August 6, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

I recently made a journey to London by train. I was meant to have my husband’s company, but he was unwell and not able to travel, so I took Rose McClelland’s new novel, Under Your Skin with me. I had read Rose’s earlier novel The Year of no Rules a while back and really enjoyed it. The book is reviewed on this site. https://bookreviewstoday.info/2017/11/15/the-year-of-no-rules-by-rose-mcclelland/

Although this book is a different genre I knew that I liked the author’s writing style. I was not disappointed.

Under Your Skin tells the story of the seemingly perfect couple, Kyle and Hannah. Of course there is no such thing as a perfect couple and when Hannah goes missing, the police suspect foul play by Kyle.

He is adamant he knows nothing of her whereabouts and even leads a campaign to find her. Their whole town comes out in force to try to find her. But one person knows where she is and that one person is keeping a secret. Hannah has left no traces and Kyle says he has no clues.

Local Belfast resident Julia Matthews joins the campaign to find Hannah and becomes friendly with Kyle because she sympathises with his plight. As Julia becomes more involved in the case, and Kyle, than she bargained for, she begins to uncover more secrets than the Police.

This mystery gets deeper and darker as the novel progresses and I was gripped by it. I did not see the twist coming and found the end of the novel satisfying and thrilling.

I think this book would make an excellent read for a book group. I enjoyed it very much and definitely recommend it.

The Author

“Under your skin” is Rose’s fourth novel. Her previous three novels were romantic fiction published by Crooked Cat. She has made the genre jump from “chick lit” to psychological thriller and is enjoying delving into a darker corner of her mind!

Rose has also written two short plays which were performed in the Black Box theatre in Belfast.

She discusses book reviews on her You Tube channel and writes theatre reviews for her blog.

She loves nothing more than curling up with her cats and a good book. She has two rescue cats – Toots, who is ginger with an inquisitive face and Soots, who is black and hops along on his 3 legs looking ever so cute.