Tag Archives: Brilliance Trilogy

Review: A Sinful Encore (Brilliance Trilogy #3) by Lisa Renee Jones

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Title: A Sinful Enxore
Author:  Lisa Renee Jones
Publisher/Year:  Julie Patra Publishing 9/18/20
Length:  308 Pages
Series: Brilliance Trilogy #3

Overview

You only thought you knew how this was going to end, but their story is far from over. The explosive finale is bound to leave you breathless.

My Thoughts

This summary certainly doesn’t do the story justice, but let’s just say that we get to see so much turmoil and uncertainty in this last book that you are forced to truly ask yourself who is on wha side. We have been through the ringer with this couple, watching Kace and Aria grow stronger, even though it seems like their pasts are tearing them apart. There are so many pieces of a joined history that they didn’t realize that when it all comes out, there’s further validation that they are potentially right for each other. Assuming the world doesn’t keep them apart.

We spend much of this third installment under the watch of Walker and the security guys that we’ve come to love and adore. We see the return of Gio and learn that maybe there’s more to everything that’s going on and that he’s actually a part of rather than working to thwart efforts. He has been hunting the family secrets for far longer than Aria was aware and brought fear and terror to their door step. Was he setting Aria and Kace up or is he really trying to save everyhitng?

The hunt for the sacred formula to make the Stradivarius continues, with a few new violins showing up for sale. While Kace and Aria work to make contact with those instruments, there’s always the uncertainty that they are being set up and we see the help of Kayden and Ella from Italy come in at the right time to aide in their hunt.

What we learn in this story is that there are far more secrets that everyone has than what they even admit. There are relationships that aren’t what they seem either now or even in the past, and those raise more questions on whether you’re willing to continue to believe what you feel is real or if you want to begin to question everything. There are ghosts from the past that are raised in this story for both our leading characters, and there’s closure that comes with each as well. We see foes come up against them again and again, and we often see those foes end up dead or just away from the center of the story forever. It’s a good way to bring the series to a close, and yet there’s still so much that remains uncertain.

What I do know is that we get all the trademark LRJ in this series – and it’s something that I truly love more than other authors. There’s the right balance of angst and anxiety. There’s so much turmoil yet so much trust and passion that we are really kept moving in this story at a good clip. I loved being back in the Riptide world and I can’t wait to see where we go next. I saw that Adrian get’s his own Walker spin off soon so i’m excited for that to come out in a few weeks. Enjoy!

Review: A Wicked Song (Brilliance Trilogy #2) by Lisa Renee Jones

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Title: A Wicked Song
Author:  Lisa Renee Jones
Publisher/Year:  Julie Patra Publishing 8/11/20
Length:  217 Pages
Series: Brilliance Trilogy #2

Overview

Kace August: famous, intense, dark, addictive. Aria Alard: a woman with secrets, passion, and a dangerous past. Passion. Secrets. Mystery. Aria fell hard for Kace. She trusted him. But did he deserve that trust? And where is Gio?A Wicked Song is the second book in the Brilliance Trilogy.

My Thoughts

The summary here doesn’t do the story justice but does that really matter? When we see the intensity that the first book had, we know that we’re in for another rollercoaster and seeing where we left off at the end of the first book, we know that it’s not just a cliff that we’re hanging off.

We know the bond between Kace and Aria is something of fantasies – it’s so intense on so many different levels that there had to be a reason. Well, as we learned at the end of book one, it’s partially because Kace knows who she is, but thankfully there’s more to the story that we learn in this second installment. There’s a past, a part of their histories that converged in one of the best ways possible, and Kace has the struggle to get Aria to listen, and to watch and to trust.

While that piece of the story is playing out, the bits where Aria is too scared to trust, where she doesn’t know what Kace is really after, and at the same time doesn’t know who’s after her, we also get to see some other amazing things develop. Friendships, professional opportunities, and even enemies take form. We see that Sara is still as amazing as her entire series showed us and watching her become a friend and ally throughout this book is something amazing. Same goes for Crystal – she sees deeper than most people and what she has to offer Aria is everything that she’s been missing in her life.

Walker Security takes a bigger role in this book, and we see one of the fan favorites in the form of SAVAGE come back. He’s honestly one of my favorite people ever given that he’s so scary yet has this sense of humor that makes you love him. I guess that’s why he got his happy ending after all. Along with Savage, we have Adrian and Blake and they are on the hunt not only to help find Gio but to figure out who’s after Aria since someone definitely is.

As i’ve send before, this is a rollercoaster of a middle book in the trilogy. We watch the strongest of relationships fall apart and we watch them fight to find a way to come back together. Voices and people from the past come up to put wedges in between them, Alexander being one of the biggest issues, but I think that what we’ve always seen in Lisa Renee Jones books is that our mains don’t give up. They flight for love, for chemistry, for hope.

Life decisions are made that are far from the path that they should have gone down and we are left on another cliffhanger that we all expected, yet we don’t yet know why connections were made and what they mean. Thankfully I think that i’ve got the third and final book and i’m off to read it since i’m impatient. Enjoy!

Review: A Reckless Note (Brilliance Trilogy #1) by Lisa Renee Jones

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Title: A Reckless Note
Author:  Lisa Renee Jones
Publisher/Year:  Julie Patra Publishing 6/23/20
Length:  280 Pages
Series: Brilliance Trilogy #1

Overview

It all started with a note, just a simple note hand written by a woman I didn’t know, never even met. But in that note is perhaps every answer to every question I’ve ever had in my life. And because of that note, I look for her, but find him. I’m drawn to his passion, his talent, a darkness in him that somehow becomes my light, my life. Kace August is rich, powerful, a rockstar of violins, a man who is all tattoos, leather, good looks and talent. He has a wickedly sweet ability to play the violin, seducing audiences worldwide. Now, he’s seducing me. I know he has secrets. I don’t care. Because you see, I have secrets, too.

I’m not Aria Alard, as he believes. I’m Aria Stradivari, daughter to Alessandro Stradivari, a musician born from the same blood as the man who created the famous Stradivarius violin. I am as rare as the mere 650 instruments my ancestors created. Instruments worth millions. 650 masterpieces, the brilliance unmatched. 650 reasons to kill. 650 reasons to hide. One reason not to: him.

My Thoughts

I love just about anything that Lisa Renee Jones writes and when we’re pulled back into the world of Riptide with a bit of Walker Security mixed in, there’s all sorts of warm fuzzies coming our way. As the summary teases, there’s a lot of mystery and history here tied all nicely together with some intense passion.

Aria is a woman who’s been forced into her life because of the mystery surrounding her father’s disappearance. Because of that, her mother took her and her brother Gio from Italy to New York and they’ve reinvented themselves with new names and everything. As the summary also tells us, it’s their family history that causes problems, this time in the form of her brother Gio who’s gone ‘missing’ – presumably hunting for his family’s dynasty in the form of the recipe of how to make the sacred and coveted violin.

As Sara did with the diaries at Riptide, Aria does with the Violin and she enters a world that’s outside her comfort zone in the hopes to find answers. She doesn’t find those answers, not yet at least, but what she does find is friendship, a world that’s risky and exciting and a man that she’s likely to fall in love with if she’s not careful.

Kace is that man. He’s the worlds most gifted bad boy violinist and he’s tight with the Riptide circle. He’s close with Chris from the Chris and Sara sagas and he’s friends with Mark – the owner of Riptide. He has a past that’s obviously made up of complicated things, and when he meets Aria, he knows that he’s not good for her, yet they are drawn to each other based on a shared passion for music, violins and chemistry.

We spend this first installment on a whirlwind with these two. Aria is infatuated with him as he is her and they have a combustable energy that crackles when they are in a room together. There’s so much between them that he starts to open up about his past and it prompts her to share more about who she really is even though it’s not safe.

Kace takes the liberty of bringing Aria into his world, showering her with luxuries that she’s been without for so long, and even offers to help her track down her brother, whom she’s certain is now in danger. It’s only until Kace trusts her a bit too much that we find a twist in the story, and that’s where we are left at the end.

All the fixings that we get in LRJ books are in this intro to the new series. There’s tension and angst, family mystery and pasts that are perhaps better kept in the past. But at the same time there’s so much passion and sexual tension that you’re really kept on the edge of your seat reading, afraid to put the book down. So, now i’ve found myself at the point where i’ve run through this book so quickly and now i’m onto book 2 without hesitation. Enjoy!