If I Were You By Lisa Renee Jones

What You Need to Know About This Book

It's a thriller romance novel from 2013. Part of the "Protection is Paramount" series. It's about a woman named Olivia who gets involved with a dangerous man named Cole after her ex-boyfriend dies under suspicious circumstances. There's a stalker subplot, some FBI involvement, and standard Jones drama woven through it all. If you're looking for a detailed breakdown of the plot, you'll find plenty of those on Goodreads or Amazon. What I'm going to talk about is how to actually find and get a copy, because that's the part nobody bothers explaining properly.

Getting If I Were You By Lisa Renee Jones

I read this back when it came out and have thought about it occasionally since. The Kindle edition runs about $4-5 on Amazon depending on promotions. The paperback is usually in the $8-12 range. Audible has the audiobook narrated by Sebastian York and Rebecca Soler, which I actually prefer if you want the full experience. Here's the thing people miss: Lisa Renee Jones publishes through multiple imprints. At the time this was released, it was through Ellora's Cave, which was independent before being acquired. That matters if you're searching library databases or used book markets because cataloguing can be inconsistent. The ISBN for the paperback is 978-1-936851-74-0. Use that when you're hunting through Book Depository or ThriftBooks instead of just the title alone. I tried to find a used hardcover once through AbeBooks and kept running into misidentified listings where sellers had typed in the wrong ISBN. You'll see it listed as her 2014 book instead. The workaround is filtering by publication date and checking the page count. This one is roughly 368 pages. Anything significantly different is probably a different edition or mislabeled entirely.

One edge case worth noting: the Ellora's Cave digital editions had some formatting quirks that annoyed me. Typography choices like excessive line spacing and weird paragraph breaks around chapter starts. If you're reading digitally, the Amazon Kindle version fixed most of that. I switched after getting the EC file directly and it was noticeably cleaner. The print version, obviously, doesn't have this problem at all. There isn't a free legal download of this. Any site offering it as a free PDF is almost certainly hosting it illegally and may come with malware or bundled unwanted software. I've seen this happen repeatedly with Jones backlists. The piracy sites push fake download buttons that install adware. Just buy the Kindle version if cost is a concern. It goes on sale regularly for under three dollars. For library copies, the interlibrary loan system works but patience is required. I requested mine through my local branch and it took about six weeks from a library about forty miles away. The hold queue was long because Jones has a dedicated readership in the thriller romance space and this particular title tends to cycle through constantly. If you need it sooner, check if your library system has a Libby/OverDrive digital checkout available. That tends to move faster because more people prefer physical copies for this author.

The audiobook version runs approximately fourteen hours and thirty minutes. Sebastian York does most of the male narration and his performance carries the Cole character well. Some listeners find the accents a bit heavy in places but it's generally well received. The dual narrator format works better here than in some of her other titles because the voice distinction between POVs is clearer. I should mention that this book isn't for everyone. It contains scenes of stalking, physical violence, and intense emotional manipulation that some readers find too much. Jones writes in the romance-thriller blend and this one leans harder toward the thriller side compared to her standalone works. If you picked it up expecting light reading, you might be unpleasantly surprised. The content warnings on Amazon and the author's website are accurate but easy to skim past if you're just browsing quickly. There's also a common misconception that you need to read the entire "Protection is Paramount" series in order. You don't. Each book features a different couple, and while characters from earlier books appear in later ones, the stories are structurally self-contained. I started with book two (this one) without reading book one and had no trouble following the plot. The recurring characters are minor cameos, not essential reading.

On the topic of sequels and spinoffs: Jones has written a prequel novella related to this storyline. It's short, around 50 pages, and goes by a different title. I'd read that after finishing the main novel if you're interested in the backstory rather than before, because it fills in details that hit differently when you already know how the story ends. If you end up enjoying this, the rest of her catalog is worth exploring, though the quality does vary. Some of her later standalone thrillers are stronger than her longer series entries. "Insidious" and "Intimate Enemy" are often recommended as starting points alongside this one. But that's a separate discussion. The main point is just getting a copy that isn't formatted poorly or sourced from a sketchy site. I've been recommending this book to people for years. It's a solid entry point into thriller romance if you handle the content expectations correctly. Find the right format, avoid the pirated downloads, and you'll have a good evening ahead of you.