CarolKat Reviews If I Were You by Lisa Renee Jones

Publisher: Gallery Books
Series: Inside Out #1
Format Read: Trade Paperback
Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Release Date: March 12, 2013
Buying Links: Barnes & Noble | Amazon* | Book Depository*
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Blurb from goodreads:

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. 

CarolKat's Thoughts:

When I first started reading this book, I didn’t realize what those first pages were. I sighed and thought sarcastically ‘Great, starts right in with the sex’.

I continued reading and I was pleasantly surprised to find I had read just a journal entry that becomes our mystery. Ms. Jones weaves a complicated tale around a school teacher Sara McMillian and the Art World of San Francisco.

Everyone has secrets and some are best left hidden. The journal, it turns out was found in a storage locker owned via an auction by her neighbor. Who elopes and gives the key and the contents to Sara. Additional journals induce Sara to attempt finding the owner. Instead she finds a summer job at an Art Gallery, replacing Rebecca, (the owner of the locker). One that may lead to a permanent job in what she is passionate about, art.

In the process she meets Chris Merit an acclaimed artist with plenty of secrets of his own and one she admires. What ensues is a very hot, very complicated relationship.

Is the Gallery manager Mark a major player in the disappearance of Rebecca? Is she really on an extended vacation or is she truly missing and in danger?

The storage unit is a key player in the book, and her ownership of it has the suspense rising.

One of my favorite exchanges in the book is between Mark and Sara, after a wine tasting event.

“Chris made us both a lot of money tonight. Making money is not a terminating offense. Now, using Chris to manipulate me for money would be, but you wouldn’t do that, now would you?”

“No”, I say, and dare to go where I would normally never go, but then nothing is normal about the past few days. “And I don’t want to be a part of the ‘who’s got the bigger sword?’ contest you two have going on, either. I don’t do cockfights. I just want to do my job and do it well.”

Although this is a cliffhanger which would normally have me cursing the author, I think I need a new thesaurus to describe my reactions to this book. Hot, sexy, mysterious, suspenseful, all seem inadequate. I give this five stars and I am extremely grateful the second book, ‘Being Me’ will be released shortly. (Carol will have a review of "Being Me" up next week, on the 10th ~ Bea)