'Beautiful Secret' by Christina Lauren: A Mini-Review // Workplace Romance, Forced Proximity & Some Steamy Hotel Scenes!

Book Reviews

Welcome to my first mini-review installment! This is a completely new review style that I haven’t tried on my blog before, but I think these quick and succinct reviews can be as fun to read as detailed and nuanced book reviews. Since this is a completely new feature on my blog, let me know what you think about this style of reviews and whether you would like to see more of these!

Without further ado, let’s move on to today’s book review!

Title: Beautiful Secret
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pub. date: 14 April 2015
Series: Beautiful Bastard #4
Page count: 385
Genre: adult, romance, contemporary

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When Ruby Miller’s boss announces he’s sending her on an extended business trip to New York City, she’s shocked. As one of the best and brightest young engineers in London, she knows she’s professionally up to the task. The part that’s throwing her is where she’ll be spending a month up close and personal working alongside and staying in a hotel with Niall Stella, her firm’s top urban planning executive and The Hottest Man Alive. Despite her ongoing crush, Ruby is certain Niall barely knows she’s alive until their flirty overnight flight makes him sit up and take notice.
Not one for letting loose and breaking rules, recently divorced Niall would describe himself as hopeless when it comes to women. But even he knows outgoing California-girl Ruby is a breath of fresh air. Once she makes it her mission to help the sexy Brit loosen his tie, there’s no turning back. Thousands of miles from London, it’s easy for the lovers to play pretend. But when the trip is over, will the relationship they’ve built up fall down?

Content warnings: alcohol consumption, cursing & vulgar language, divorce, explicit sexual content, power differential, sexual assault (mentioned), workplace sexual harassment

This is my second time reading a CLo romance & after loving ‘Beautiful Player’ last time I expected a lot from this follow-up.

Ruby was a great protagonist! She’s young, career-driven, smart, beautiful & she’s got that spark to her, all qualities that I loved! Niall was a great character too, with lots of potential. The two of them together had great chemistry & I loved their scenes together!

What didn’t work for me was that the conflict in the plot took up the majority of the story. I prefer having a good portion of the story left for the resolution as well, especially in romance. It felt rushed here for me. I was getting pretty frustrated with these two past the halfway mark in the story as well.

But as expected from a CLo romance, I loved the steamy romance, the great characters, and the absolutely brilliant dialogue! If I were to compare this to the rest of the series (not that I’ve read the whole series 😭), it wouldn’t rank anywhere at the top but it’s still a solid romance on its own.

Here’s more Beautiful Secret content you should check out: Elyse’s review, Sara’s review

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You / Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, The Unhoneymooners, Twice in a Blue Moon, and The Soulmate Equation. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.