Category Archives: Lisa Renee Jones

March 15, 2021 · 12:01 am

Review: The Poet by Lisa Renee Jones

Title: The Poet by Lisa Renee Jones
Samantha Jazz Series Book One
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: C

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones brings a fresh, modern take to the thriller genre that will keep you guessing until the very end.

“The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” -Jean Cocteau

Some call him friend or boss.
Some call him husband or dad.
Some call him son, even a favorite son.

But the only title that matters to him is the one the media has given him: The Poet.

A name he earned from the written words he leaves behind after he kills that are as dark and mysterious as the reason he chooses his victims.

One word, two, three, a story in a poem, a secret that only Detective Samantha Jazz can solve. Because he’s writing this story for her.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

Review:

The first installment in the Samantha Jazz series, The Poet by Lisa Renee Jones is an intriguing mystery.

Detective Samantha Jazz inherits a murder investigation from another detective who is transferring to another city. She and her partner Ethan Langford easily pick up the investigation into Michael Summer’s murder. Her expertise with poetry is a large part of the reason she is assigned to the case. The victim was found with a piece of paper with poetry verses in the victim’s mouth. As Samantha tries to understand the killer’s message, the killer strikes again. With this victim hitting closer to home, Samantha realizes the murderer has been following her.

Samantha is brash, independent and impatient. She relies more on her gut than facts and she is easily annoyed when anyone challenges her suppositions. During the investigation, Samantha turns to her former boyfriend, FBI Agent Wade Miller for assistance.  Once she zeroes in on a suspect, Samantha defies her boss on more than one occasion while searching for evidence.

The Poet is an interesting mystery but the pacing is slow. Samantha’s abrasive personality and go it alone attitude make it difficult to like her. The investigation stalls out as she gets tunnel vision during the investigation. With unexpected twists and startling turns, Lisa Renee Jones brings this police procedural to a surprising conclusion.

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Filed under Contemporary, Entangled: Amara, Lisa Renee Jones, Mystery, Rated C, Review, The Poet

July 11, 2013 · 3:59 am

Blog Tour Stop, Review & Contest: Being Me by Lisa Renee Jones

Title: Being Me by Lisa Renee Jones
Inside Out Trilogy Book Two
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Imprint: Gallery Books
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Mystery, BDSM
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: C

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publicist

Summary:

I arch into him, drinking in his passion, instantly, willingly consumed by all that he is and could be to me. . . .

Sara McMillan is still searching for Rebecca, the mysterious woman whose dark, erotic journal entries both enthralled and frightened her. Tormented by a strong desire to indulge the demands of her new boss while also drawn deeper into her passionate bond with the troubled artist, Chris Merit, Sara must face a past as deeply haunting as Rebecca’s written words. In one man’s arms, Sara will find the safe haven to reveal her most intimate secrets and explore her darkest fantasies. But is safety just an illusion, when the truth about Rebecca has yet to be discovered?

The Review:

Being Me is the angst-laden second novel in Lisa Renee Jones’ Inside Out trilogy. Picking up right where If I Were You leaves off, readers are thrust back into Sara McMillan’s dysfunctional relationship with Chris Merit and her investigation into Rebecca Mason’s disappearance.

While If I Were You focused mainly on Sara trying to uncover what happened to Rebecca, Being Me centers on Sara and Chris’s on again/off tumultuous relationship. The confident and independent Sara we encountered in the first book of the trilogy has been replaced by an insecure, dithering, jealous mess whose indecisiveness is beyond frustrating. Chris and Sara are tortured by their respective pasts and neither one of them can trust the other person enough to confide their secrets. Their relationship is full of steaming hot sex but their underlying issues continually tear them apart. The entire book is a rollercoaster of drama that never gets resolved and the ride is exhausting.

I liked Sara in the first book, but I absolutely could not stand her in Being Me. She is overly dramatic, prone to jumping to conclusions and just flat out wishy washy. She cannot stick to a decision to save her life and she constantly gives in to Chris’s demands. Her emotions are all over the place and her tendency to dissolve into hysterical sobs is exasperating. Unless she grows a backbone in Revealing Us, the final book in the trilogy, it appears that Sara is doomed to repeat the mistakes of her past.

Whereas Sara is an open book, Chris remains shrouded in mystery. He is dark, edgy and commanding but in Being Me, he is also vulnerable. While we see more of his compassionate and caring side, his secrets remain carefully hidden. The lack of information about what drives him becomes annoying as he continues to manipulate Sara and their relationship.

The mystery about what happened to Rebecca is what I found most intriguing. The investigation is haphazard and seems to be an afterthought to overall storyline. Fortunately the questions surrounding her disappearance are revealed in a surprising plot twist.

Being Me ends on another cliffhanger as Chris makes a decision that threatens the future of his and Sara’s relationship. There is also the unresolved mystery surrounding Sara’s friend Ella’s whereabouts. Are these two storylines about to converge? It certainly appears they might and it will be interesting to see how Lisa Renee Jones wraps up the Inside Out trilogy.

Title: If I Were You by Lisa Renee Jones
Inside Out Trilogy Book One
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Imprint: Gallery Books
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Mystery
Length: 352 pages

Summary:

The steamy first installment in the Inside Out erotic romance trilogy by Lisa Renee Jones, in the bestselling tradition of Fifty Shades of Grey.

When Sara McMillan finds a stack of journals in a storage unit, she’s shocked and enthralled by the erotic life the writer led. Unable to stop reading, she vicariously lives out dark fantasies through Rebecca, the writer—until the terrifying final entry.

Certain something sinister has happened, Sara sets out to discover the facts, immersing herself in Rebecca’s life. Soon she’s working at the art gallery Rebecca worked at and meeting Rebecca’s friends. Finding herself drawn to two dangerously sexy men, the manager of the gallery and a famed artist, Sara realizes she’s going down the same path Rebecca took. But with the promise of her dark needs being met by a man with confident good looks and a desire for control, she’s not sure anything else matters. Just the burn for more.

Contest

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Filed under BDSM, Being Me, Contemporary, Contest, Erotic, Gallery Books, Inside Out Trilogy, Lisa Renee Jones, Mystery, Rated C, Review, Romance, Simon & Schuster Inc

March 13, 2013 · 3:59 am

Blog Tour Stop: Lisa Renee Jones’ If I Were You



If I Were You
By Lisa Renee Jones
Erotic Suspense 
Date to be Published: PRINT Release March 11

If I Were You

Announcement from Lisa Renee Jones

Back in September it was announced that New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones sold her indie erotic series THE INSIDE OUT TRILOGY in a major deal to by Simon and Schuster.(Louise Fury, L.Perkins Agency) Since then the highly acclaimed series has sold to ten foreign countries, with more under negotiation, and now it’s been optioned by STARZ for television (Shari Smiley, Resolution.) The project is moving forward quickly, with Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland) producing. 
 Inspired by a real journal found in a storage unit during Lisa’s eight years buying and selling units, the series embraces the dark sensuality of Shades of Grey and the intrigue with storage units that is Storage Wars in one spine tingling series packed with mystery and passion. The print version of IF I WERE YOU, book 1, hits stores March 12th. 


About book one:
If Were You (print release March 2011)

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, all of 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.


EXCERPT


We begin our walk, faster this time, and the cold wind has nothing on the chill between us. Conversation is non-existent, and I have no clue how to break the silence, or if I should even try. I dare a peek at his profile several times, fighting the wind blowing hair over my eyes, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. Why won’t he look at me? Several times, I open my mouth to speak but words simply won’t leave my lips. 
We are almost to the gallery, and a knot has formed in my stomach at the prospect of an awkward goodbye, when he suddenly grabs me and pulls me into a small enclave of a deserted office rental. Before I can fully grasp what is happening, I am against the wall, hidden from the street and he is in front of me, enclosing me in the tiny space. I blink up into his burning stare and I think I might combust. His scent, his warmth, his hard body, is all around me, but he is not touching me. I want him to touch me. 
He presses his hand to the concrete wall above my head when I want it on my body. “You don’t belong here, Sara.”
The words are unexpected, a hard punch in the chest. “What? I don’t understand.”
“This job is wrong for you.” 
I shake my head. I don’t belong? Coming from Chris, an established artist, I feel inferior, rejected. “You asked me why I wasn’t following my heart. Why I wasn’t pursuing what I love. I am. That’s what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t think you’d do it in this place.”
This place. I don’t know what he’s telling me. Does he mean this gallery? This city? Has he judged me not worthy of his inner circle? 
“Look, Sara.” He hesitates, and lifts his head to the sky, seeming to struggle for words before fixing me with a turbulent look. “I’m trying to protect you here. This world you’ve strayed into is filled with dark, messed up, arrogant assholes who will play with your mind and use you until there is nothing else left for you to recognize in yourself.”
“Are you one of those dark, messed up, arrogant assholes?”
He stares down at me, and I barely recognize the hard lines of his face, the glint in his eyes, as belonging to the man I’ve just had lunch with. His gaze sweeps my lips, lingers, and the swell of response and longing in me is instant, overwhelming. He reaches up and strokes his thumb over my bottom lip. Every nerve ending in my body responds and it’s all I can do not to touch him, to grab his hand, but something holds me back. I am lost in this man, in his stare, in some spellbinding, dark whirlwind of…what? Lust, desire, torment? Seconds tick eternally and so does the silence. I want to hold him, to stop whatever I sense is coming but I cannot. 
“I’m worse.” He pushes off the wall, and is gone. He is gone. I am alone against the wall, aching with a fire that has nothing to do with the meal we shared. My lashes flutter, my fingers touch my lip where he touched me. He has warned me away from Mark, from the gallery, from him, and he has failed. I cannot turn away. I am here and I am going nowhere.

Lisa Renee Jones
Author Bio:


Bestselling author Lisa Renée Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT TRILOGY which will debut internationally across many countries in 2013. Booklist says that Jones’ suspense truly sizzles with an energy similar to FBI tales with a paranormal twist by Julie Garwood or Suzanne Brockmann. Alpha, military, and paranormal romance readers will want Jones’ entire series. (About the Zodius Series — Storm that is Sterling) In 2003, award winning author Lisa Renée Jones sold her Austin, Texas based multi-state staffing agency and has since published over thirty novels and novellas across several genres. Her staffing agency LRJ Staffing was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised by Dallas Women Magazine. In 1998 LRJ was listed as the #7 growing women owned business in Entrepreneur Magazine. Her debuts with Blaze and Nocturne hit Bookscan’s Top 100 list and her Blaze Hot Zone trilogy made a showing on the list in 2011 also.



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Filed under Blog Tour, If I Were You, Lisa Renee Jones