Under Your Skin by Rose McClelland – Blog Tour (Review)

There’s more to this book than meets the eye.

On the surface, it’s the story of a missing woman and the search to find her before it’s too late (but what does that really mean?) Underneath, however, it’s a commentary on the relationships between men and women, gender roles, misogyny, and a host of other things.

There’s a whole lotta something going on here.

I’ll say this at the outset: it’s not a spoiler to say that this book deals with control and psychological abuse, which could be triggering to some readers.

There were some very strong moments. The author really captured relationships of many kinds, from work to personal. Each time a male and female were paired in a scene there was a noticeable difference in the dynamics, which kept it interesting.

I did spend a lot of time wondering how the author was going to sustain the plot, because it seemed pretty cut and dried. But I’ll just admit right now that I was wrong about that. Roughly halfway through, there was a decent twist that had me second-guessing most of the first half of the book.

There were a few questionable parts. The women did not come across as particularly strong. This was disappointing, because in a way it allowed for the men to become more dominant in the story. Julia, in particular, was unlikable due to her actions. There wasn’t enough background on her to justify her choices or make them more understandable.  

I also didn’t care for the way the each of the women (even Kerry, who was in law enforcement) at one point or another made allusions to “a crazed rapist” being on the loose or responsible. It didn’t fit the story and seemed only to serve as some neo-feminist idea that “women have to be scared of men because of this.”

This was a misstep, because two of the three main male characters in the story did nothing to be painted with this type of assumption.

I’m not saying that this was the author’s intent – just that’s the way it came across.

Overall, however, the story was an interesting study on the various relationships and interactions that men and women can have with each other. I just wish it had been a little more even-handed.

About Rose McClelland:

“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.