The last in a series of ten books and novellas, Beautiful serves as a standalone-ish contemporary romance from writing duo Christina Lauren, as well as providing visits with the five other couples in the group and wrapping all the threads up with a bow. Usually landing on the erotic end of the romance spectrum, Beautiful was pretty tame by Lauren standards, but still in keeping with the authors’ style.
Pippa is visiting Boston to see her best friend, Ruby, and take a two-week road trip with Ruby and her husband, plus another couple. Having walked in on him tupping someone else, Pippa just broke up with her boyfriend and needs a change of scene. Relaxed and fun, she has a drunken blither with a buttoned-up stranger on the plane from London and he just happens to be coming along on the road trip as well.
Jensen, brother of my favourite Beautiful series character, Hanna, had a disappointing first marriage and immersed himself since in working towards partnership in a law firm*. He agrees to come on the trip before realising that the colourful woman whom he feigned sleep to avoid on the plane is coming with them. Things move along predictably from there. He’s formal. She’s a free spirit. He’s bland, she’s colourful. They’re made for each other. It’s all over pretty quickly.
Rather than seeking a new romance for Christina Lauren, I really was more interested in the following up with the other characters and my favourites, Will and Hanna, are heavily featured. Jens and Pippa’s story is perfunctory, but decent. Christina Lauren has continued to get better with each outing and the improvement from Beautiful Bastard to this last entry has been consistent and appreciable; moreover, the sheen of dude-bro sexism that plagued the men’s interactions earlier in the series is gone.
- Beautiful Bastard
- Beautiful Bitch
- Beautiful Stranger
- Beautiful Bombshell
- Beautiful Player
- Beautiful Beginning
- Beautiful Beloved
- Beautiful Secret
- Beautiful Boss
- Beautiful – presented herewith
*One of the elements of the fantasy lifestyles of the characters in the series I like is that while they get dream jobs easily and have gobs of disposable income, they do work really long hours.
Christina Lauren has a series, Wild Seasons, in the new adult romance genre which I recommend over the Beautiful books. A complete list of Christina Lauren’s catalogue can be found here.
Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my streamlined recommendations list.
You should absolutely check out Dating You/Hating You, their most recent standalone romance. It certainly addresses sexism and was a lot of fun to boot. Not very steamy, as their books go, though.
I really count on their books for the steamy. Is the new one on the level of Wicked Sexy Liar?
No, all the Wild Seasons books are way steamier. Their most recent one had surprisingly little *funky bass line*, with most of the love scenes being fade to black. I was surprised, since like you, I’ve come to expect a certain level of steam from them. The book is still really good, though.