Lisa Renee Jones's Blog, page 105

The cover of RT has arrived with NO IN BETWEEN on the front!

Isn’t it pretty? No In Between is out in August and all the secrets about Rebecca are

revealed. Mark, Chris, and Sara will be back in full force. And in the July novella MY HUNGER you

get Mark’s POV leading up to NO IN BETWEEN and what waits on Chris and Sara back

in San Francisco when they return! It’s a super sexy look into Mark’s head!

 

Join the Read Along as we get ready for My Hunger and No In Between with prizes and fun!

Don’t forget the Inside Out Read Along going on right now! Tons of prizes being given away DAILY! They’re on Rebecca’s Lost Journals now.

Join the fun here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Look for the sub-discussion named: Volume 2: The Contract – February 17 – 27, 2011 for today’s questions.

Bid on a signed set of the Inside Out books and one of the last silk totes I have!

For auction at the Brenda Novak auction — a bundle of autographed books and one of the THE LAST one of these bags I have! This is the front and back of these silk bags. I literally have like 5 total of these left!

Go here to bid!

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP & SASSY RED APRON GIVEAWAY

This is an easy dish to prepare. If you microwave it, this makes a perfect dish to make in hot weather. Great for football games or family fun nights.

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

2 (8oz.) packages cream cheese, (I use low fat)

1 package taco cheese

2 tablespoons hot sauce

1 big can chicken, or 2 small, drained

 Directions:

In a medium bowl, add cream cheese and chicken, microwave 30 seconds

Add hot sauce and mix to combine.

In a 8X8 baking dish, spread cream cheese mixture.

Cover with taco cheese, as much as you like I use a bit over ½ bag.

Bake 350 until cheese melts, about 15-20 minutes, or microwave for about 2 ½- 3 minutes.

Serve with celery sticks and tortilla chips.

Enjoy!!!

Rae

 Enter to win a Fashion Flirty Women’s Original Red Sassy Apron, Good Luck and Thanks for entering!!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING & Wilton Baking Cups Giveaway

This is my go to recipe for when I want something different.  I like to fill vanilla cupcakes with raspberry filling and then use this frosting.  Makes as great peanut butter and jelly cupcake.

PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Cream butter and peanut butter together.

Add half the powdered sugar and blend.

Blend in milk and vanilla.

Add remaining powdered sugar.

Stir until smooth and well blended.

TIP:  I use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment.  It makes a creamy frosting.

Enjoy!!!

Rae

Enter to win Wilton 300-Pack Baking Cups, Good Luck and Thanks for entering!!

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IF I WERE YOU is available at NetGalley – $50 Giveaway & MORE!!

Start the Inside Out series – IF I WERE YOU is free to read at NetGalley Read it for free HERE

Enter for your chance to win $50 Giftcard, Inside Out Bags, Chris Merit Pens, Yankee Candles and super cute Eiffel Tower Wine Stopper or Beer opener on my FACEBOOK Page

Other ways to enter:  Instagram, Tweet, Pin,  and Share  

Winners announced Wednesday 5/7!!

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.

TORTILLA WRAP APPETIZERS & Fiesta Platter Giveaway

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!! These are great appetizers for the occasion or really anytime. I think the characters in IF I WERE YOU would like them. Chris Merit is a fan of the Mexican restaurant Diego Maria’s. If you want to learn more about the books, please visit the links below. Have a great CINCO DE MAYO!!!!

TORTILLA WRAP APPETIZERS

 You will need:

 1 package of 10 flour tortillas

1 package taco cheese

Green onions, (I use 1 or 2, it depends if your guests like a lot of onion)

Sour cream, (I use less fat, or no fat)

10 slices Ham, (you could use turkey also)

Toothpicks, about 50 if you slice each in 5

 

Directions:

 Slightly warm the tortillas in the microwave, the whole pack for about 10 seconds.

Spread the sour cream over the tortilla, stop at about ½ inch from the edge

Place a slice of ham in the middle of tortilla, flat

Add green onion and cheese, not too much of either or it will spill out.

Roll up the tortilla.  (see pic for finished product)

Place toothpicks in to the size appetizers you choose, I usually have 5 per tortilla.

Now slice in 5, or your choosing.  Place in fridge until ready to use, Cover with plastic wrap, the onion is a very strong smell.

I have made these a day ahead and they were fine.

 

Enjoy!!!

Rae

Enter to win a Fiesta 9-5/8-Inch Oval Platter, Good Luck and Thanks for entering!!

 

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10th Anniversary Brenda Novack’s Auction for Diabetes!!

Every year, for the month of May, New York Times and USA Today Best-selling Author Brenda Novak runs an online auction for diabetes research. The auction takes a full year to plan and pull off, but it’s a labor of love—an effort to help all the people who, like her youngest son, suffer from diabetes. Her very first auction ran in 2005. It started small but has grown every year by leaps and bounds.

The Brenda Novak Online Auction for Diabetes Research is the biggest online event for diabetes research in the world. Each year, with the help of generous donors–which include some of the biggest and brightest stars in publishing, like Nora Roberts, Diana Gabaldon, Sylvia Day, Suzanne Brockmann, Lee Child, and Steve Berry–Brenda offers up over 2000 fabulous items, creating a shopper’s paradise. As a cumulative total, she’s raised $2 million.

But the auction is more than your everyday charity gala. It’s a blast to participate in–a real community. They do drawings and give away prizes. Shoppers quickly become donors and donors quickly become shoppers. It’s an outstanding fundraising model!

Here’s to making a difference…

 To bid on these items you’ll need to register for the auction.  You can register using this link – HERE

 
 

Here are the links to the items that I have donated…
 
INSIDE OUT Series (Book 1-3)/REBECCA’S LOST JOURNALS/Red Tote by Bestselling Author Lisa Renee Jones http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=3329897
 
INSIDE OUT Series (Bk 1-3)/REBECCA’S LOST JOURNALS/White Tote by Bestselling Author Lisa Renee Jones http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=3329898
 
INSIDE OUT Series (Bk 1-3)/REBECCA’S LOST JOURNALS/Black Tote by Bestselling Author Lisa Renee Jones http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=3329899
 
 So far they have raised over $2 million dollars. You can browse the over 1500 items they have currently at https://brendanovak.auctionanything.com. 
 

Prologue for No In Between (Book 4 Inside Out Series)

**Please note this contains spoilers if you have not read His Secrets**

 

No In Between 

Prologue 

Friday, November 10th, 2012, Journal Entry #1

On a plane from Paris to San Francisco 

 I will soon be Sara Merit instead of Sara McMillan. I can barely believe it’s true, or that Chris Merit, the amazing, talented, gifted man in the leather seat next to me, is about to be my husband. I should be snuggled against him, resting and reveling in our amazing bond that only seems to get stronger, but I cannot seem to relax. My mind is too much of a jumbled mess over last night, and everything that happened in those few hours before we left Paris. All the craziness of the past month is playing around in my head, twisting me in knots one moment, and causing me to break out in a spontaneous smile at others.

 And so here I am, writing in a touristy journal etched with the image of the Eiffel Tower (isn’t everything you buy in Paris!) that I picked up in the airport, penning my thoughts just the way Rebecca used to. Used to. I feel sick to my stomach, writing about her in the past tense. She is a stranger and she is gone, and yet she’s completely a part of me. It’s impossible to explain how deeply and profoundly her life, and her words, have spoken to me.

Since reading Rebecca’s journals I’ve often thought of starting my own, and finally doing so makes me feel like I haven’t lost her—that there’s still hope I might meet her. Maybe it’s my form of denial, my hope that Ava didn’t kill her. I feel an almost desperate need to discover that she’s still out there somewhere, still traveling the world with the hot, rich man I’m told she ran off with to forget Mark. And if I feel these things, I can only imagine what Mark must feel and how deeply this must cut him. I saw the heartache in his eyes after Ava confessed to killing Rebecca; the kind of heartache that leaves a person weak and bleeding—the way the loss of my mother had left me.

Only a week ago, when I’d first arrived in Paris and learned that Ava had turned her confession into accusations against me and Mark, I’d been terrified and overwhelmed, worried about where it would lead, and what it would mean. Now, though, my fear has transformed into anger, and defeat into a readiness to fight. I think I needed the time to deal with the rawness from the news of Rebecca’s death, and the attempt on my own life, right on the heels of losing Dylan and then nearly losing Chris with him.

As much as I’d fought going to Paris, I’m so very glad I went. It was on our last night in Paris, only hours before we left, that Chris and I made a real breakthrough in our relationship. I still can’t get the memory of the midnight phone call to rescue Amber out of my head, and even more so, the way we’d found her tied up in Isabel’s “playroom” with welts all over her skin. But as horrific as that was, it finally got her into rehab. It also convinced Chris that he hadn’t fully revealed everything he should have to me, before his marriage proposal.

I can’t believe how wrong I’d been about his secret, and I blame myself for not looking deeper inside the man I love. I know how heartache and damage run in deep layers, not easily peeled away. I’d accepted too easily that his big reveal in Paris was about his reasons for seeking out the whip years ago. About the teenage boy he’d shot and killed when he and Amber’s family had been mugged, and how he’d been unable to save her mother and father. And it wasn’t even about the once a year meltdown he confessed to having during the week of that anniversary.

His real secret, that deeper layer, was that Dylan’s death had shown him how much control the whip still has over him. Last night he’d confessed that while he was away for Dylan’s funeral, he’d sought that kind of relief over and over again. Chris can no longer say he’ll never need the whip again, so we will face that monster together and win. I’ll show him that I am strong and won’t crumble. He will not destroy me, as he swears he did Amber and now fears he will me. How can he? He’s saved me many times over.

It’s my turn to save him. 

PRE-ORDER No In Between

Amazon – http://amzn.to/1mxOep0

B&N – http://bit.ly/M9P3Zq

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.

Purchase  IF I WERE YOU – Book 1 

Amazon – http://amzn.to/LpV3hg

B&N – http://bit.ly/1czVBd4

Spring Cleaning, Pulled Pork, & Meyer’s Liquid Dish Soap Giveaway Oh My!

Spring is here!!  It is that time again, we all need to start SPRING CLEANING.  It usually takes quite a while to get through all the work, and by the time you’re done with one room you are exhausted and hungry.  I have a great recipe that you start the night before, so you can spend all day cleaning and not have to worry about dinner.  Plus if you use a crock pot bag the cleanup is very easy.  I have also added a bonus recipe to help you with your spring cleaning. 

Spring Cleaning Recipe:

Microwave cleaning:  Mix ½ cup distilled vinegar and ½ cup water in a microwave safe bowl.  Bring to a boil inside the microwave.  Any baked on food should loosen and odors will also be removed.  Wipe clean, discard the water down your drain.

Rae’s tips for Spring Cleaning are:

1. Make a list, going room by room and writing down what needs to be done.  Keep room lists separate, so you and discard the papers once the room is completely clean. ( it helps to make you feel like you are getting things done, a highlighter crossing off all the things you do also helps.)

2.  Check your new list and make another list for the grocery store or dollar type store for cleaning supplies and products.  (if you are trying to clean on a budget you can find a lot, if not all of the necessary products at dollar tree)  (The opinion of the Dollar Tree is strictly my own, we were not compensated in any way by the store.)

3.  Get anyone in the house involved.  Kids can help clean the lower things like baseboards.  Taller folks can help dust the high areas.  Remember to dust your book shelves.  Take all items off and then dust the shelf, replace each item after the items have been dusted.  Don’t forget to dust your copy of If I Were You by LISA RENEE JONES.  Sold HERE

4. On the night before you decide to tackle your first room, check out the easy crock pot recipe.  You can get a lot more done if you don’t have to worry about dinner if you cook in a crock pot. 

5.  These are just a few tips to get you going.  You can also visit this list HERE for a very thorough list to help you get your SPRING CLEANING in order

PULLED PORK SANDWICHES

You need pork shoulder roast, I buy a 6 pound roast

1 can Dr. Pepper, (OR IF YOU HAVE A 2 LITER BOTTLE A CUP WILL DO.)

1 onion sliced

1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce

Rolls, for serving

 

In a crock pot, I first add a crock pot bag, you can skip this if you like, but it makes for an easy clean up.

Add sliced onions to bottom, put your roast on top of the onion slices.  Now on top of the roast add 1 can of Dr. Pepper.

Cook on low for about 12 hours.  When roast is done, take out of crock pot, I usually dump the juice out at this point.

Remove any fat from the roast, discard.  Now with 2 forks, pull the pork apart until it is all pulled.

Add back into the pot, now add a bottle of BBQ sauce and cook at least another hour. 

Serve on a roll.

Tip, I usually start my roast at 11pm.  Then you have the roast ready for lunch.  I then leave it on heat setting to serve for dinner.

Tip, I have also substituted 7-up or cola for the Dr. Pepper. All 3 flavors have a great taste. Any one will do.

 

Enjoy!!!

Rae

Enter to win Meyer’s Liquid Dish Soap, Good Luck and Thanks for entering!! a Rafflecopter giveaway