Review: If I Were You (Inside Out Series) by Lisa Renee Jones

Title:  If I Were You
Author:  Lisa Renee Jones
Series:  Inside Out #1
Pub Date:  Sept. 13, 2012
Publisher:  Gallery Books
Pages:  357

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sultry Scale: 4 of 5 Flames

How it all started…

One day I was a high school teacher on summer break, leading a relatively uneventful but happy life. Or so I told myself. Later, I’d question that, as I would question pretty much everything I knew about me, my relationships, and my desires. It all began when my neighbor thrust a key to a storage unit at me. She’d bought it to make extra money after watching some storage auction show. Now she was on her way to the airport to elope with a man she barely knew, and she needed me to clear out the unit before the lease expired.

Soon, I was standing inside a small room that held the intimate details of another woman’s life, feeling uncomfortable, as if I was invading her privacy. Why had she let these items so neatly packed, possessions that she clearly cared about deeply, be lost at an auction? Driven to find out by some unnamed force, I began to dig, to discover this woman’s life, and yes, read her journals—-dark, erotic journals that I had no business reading. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I read on obsessively, living out fantasies through her words that I’d never dare experience on my own, compelled by the three men in her life, none of whom had names. I read onward until the last terrifying dark entry left me certain that something had happened to this woman. I had to find her and be sure she was okay.

Before long, I was taking her job for the summer at the art gallery, living her life, and she was nowhere to be found. I was becoming someone I didn’t know. I was becoming her.

The dark, passion it becomes…

Now, I am working at a prestigious gallery, where I have always dreamed of being, and I’ve been delivered to the doorstep of several men, allof which I envision as one I’ve read about in the journal. But there is one man that will call to me, that will awaken me in ways I never believed possible. That man is the ruggedly sexy artist, Chris Merit, who wants to paint me. He is rich and famous, and dark in ways I shouldn’t find intriguing, but I do. I so do. I don’t understand why his dark side appeals to me, but the attraction between us is rich with velvety promises of satisfaction. Chris is dark, and so are his desires, but I cannot turn away. He is damaged beneath his confident good looks and need for control, and in some way, I feel he needs me. I need him.

All I know for certain is that he knows me like I don’t even know me, and he says I know him. Still, I keep asking myself — do I know him? Did he know her, the journal writer, and where is she? And why doesn’t it seem to matter anymore? There is just him and me, and the burn for more.

Nooooooooo! You cant end it there! (The sound that just woke my dogs from a dead sleep at 2am.)

It's funny how you forget certain aspects of a book as time passes. I first read this book in 2012. Between then and now, I had forgotten about that huge ass cliffhanger. That suprises me given it was the reason I put the series on hold in the first place. Let me clarify, I didn't postpone reading because I didn't like the books. No, I liked the first book so much that I knew I would not be patient enough to wait any significant length of time between releases.

So now that the series is complete, I am excited to embark on this journey again. And this time, I am taking my bookclub (the Chicklits) with me! We will be discussing this book at our meeting in a few days.

This book has it all. We have the mystery angle with the missing Rebecca, and possibly Ella. We have a budding romance, steamy sex and tortured hero(ine) with Chris and Sara. We get some hints at BDSM from Rebecca's journals. We have villians yet to be officially identified. Daddy issues and dead mothers. A sexual awakening. A brooding alpha male. A handsome domineering boss. Art and wine and opera. Drama! I mean what else can she pack in here? It was great and I'm happy to finally be reading the story.

I have yet to form a clear picture of Sara... probably because I am casting myself in the role (as usual). I've had a few ideas for Chris and Mark... what do you think?

Chris Hemsworth as Chris Merit

Eric Dane as Mark

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Teaser Tuesday: All of Me by Lisa Renee Jones

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday!  Lots of blogs post all the new releases each week, so I want to do something a little different.  Instead of posting all the new releases, I am going to feature the one new release that I am most excited about!  

This week, I am most excited about All of Me by Lisa Renee Jones.  

Get your copy at Amazon!

WHY am I so excited about this book you ask?  Well, because I read the first book in the series (If I Were You ), and I loved it so much that I knew I could not stand to wait each time a new book came out.  So I have been buying and hoarding these books - just waiting for the series to be finished.  Now I can finally re-read the first book and finish the series!!!  And let me tell you, all these months I have not been able to get Chris Merit out of my mind.  I am not saying much about the female lead, Sara... because I hate her.  It should be ME ME ME in her place. 

My bookclub (Chicklits of Nola) will be reading All of Me for our February meeting.  I know they will be hooked as fast as I was.  

The Inside Out series has also been optioned for a cable television show!  Who would you cast as Chris? I would lean toward Chris Hemsworth or Charlie Hunnam myself.

Make sure to read the series in the correct order, which Lisa has supplied for us on her website.

A short excerpt from the book:

His mouth closes down on mine, and the torment in his kiss devours me, sliding deep into my soul where it burrows like everything that is this man. So much so that when he pulls his mouth from mine and whispers, “I love you,” I can barely breathe.

Get your copy today, and stay tuned for my review of the full series!

Review: Alpha

Alpha by Jasinda Wilder

Overall Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Sultry Scale:  4 of 5 flames






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The first time it happened, it seemed like an impossible miracle. Bills were piling up, adding up to more money than I could ever make. Mom's hospital bills. My baby brother's tuition. My tuition. Rent. Electricity. All of it on my shoulders. And I had just lost my job. There was no hope, no money in my account, no work to be found. And then, just when I thought all hope was lost, I found an envelope in the mail. No return address. My name on the front, my address. Inside was a check, made out to me, in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Enough to pay the bills and leave me some left over to live on until I found a job. Enough to let me focus on classes. There was no name on the check, just "VRI Inc.," and a post office box address for somewhere in the city. No hint of identity or reason for the check or anything. No mention of repayment, interest, nothing…except a single word, on the notes line: "You." Just those three letters.

If you receive a mysterious check, for enough money to erase all your worries, would you cash it? I did.  The next month, I received another check, again from VRI Incorporated. It too contained a single word: "belong."  A third check, the next month. This time, two words. Four letters. "To me."  The checks kept coming. The notes stopped. Ten thousand dollars, every month. A girl gets used to that, real quick. It let me pay the bills without going into debt. Let me keep my baby brother in school and Mom's hospice care paid for. How do you turn down what seems like free money, when you're desperate? You don't. I didn't.  And then, after a year, there was a knock on my door. A sleek black limousine sat on the curb in front of my house. A driver stood in front of me, and he spoke six words: "It's time to pay your debt."

Would you have gotten in?  I did.  It turns out $120,000 doesn't come free.

The blurb (above) offers a good teaser of what this book will be about.  It pretty much summarizes the first chapter.  The story is told from the POV of our female lead, Kyrie, a bit of a tortured soul, who has been having a rough go-of-it for the last 7 years.  At a low point, the mysterious checks start coming in the mail.  The synopsis poses a good question - would you cash the check?  I have to say that I probably would - but I would probably obsess over it for a while, do as much research as I could, then let the money sit in the bank until I was absolutely desperate. Now, in real life, would the checks lead to a knight in shining armor riding in to save the day on his white steed?  Not in my life, my benefactor is more likely to be a fucktard in tinfoil on a donkey.  But - that's my lot in life and probably the driving force behind my reading habit.

Anyhoo, Kyrie finally meets her patron, Valentine Roth, only to learn that he has a huge secret that will change their relationship.  The foreshadowing here pretty much gives away the plot (what little there was).  

As far as the characters go, I did not identify much with Kyrie and I never got a clear picture of her in my head. I know that she must have amazing hair because it apparently looked great no matter whether she had been swimming in the ocean, or went to sleep with it soaking wet.  As a curly girl with a head full of spirals - I had to automatically hate her for that.  If I go to sleep with my hair wet, I wake up with something resembling a giant bird's nest.  Hair aside, I did like that she was outspoken and seemed to put her thoughts out there (when compared to a character like Anastasia Steele who was more apt to have an inner monologue than communicate with Christian Grey).  

I liked Valentine Roth as a character, and at first cast him in my head as a Jason Lewis... but later in the book he is compared to Alexander Skarsgard, so my perception altered a bit.  Although I liked Roth, I didn't feel like we ever got to know him.  

In fact, once Kyrie and Roth actually met, they couldn't stay out of bed long enough to let the plot develop.  There were numerous sexcapades, all very detailed and lengthy.  The author really got descriptive here, but wasn't  overly vulgar or raunchy.  <Kudos for sneaking the word "pudendum" in... and getting me to google it.  Yikes!>  So the steam factor was good - there was just a bit too much of it (gasp).  It seems like the lengthy sex scenes hindered the plot development.  I would have liked to see the relationship develop more between Kyrie and Valentine.  

All-in-all, the book was okay - but it didn't leave me satisfied.  I would compare it to Fifty Shades with less story and character development.  Fortunately, the second book in the series is already out, and it sounds like Beta will be a much more interesting book.