Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4)

Beautiful Secret brings the story of Naill, Max from Beautiful Stranger and Beautiful Beloved younger brother. And Naill is painfully British. He comes off as aloof and very proper. He\’s always in a suit and nothing is ever out-of-place. While Max has been living in New York for a while running a business and getting married Naill\’s has been over in England running a business and getting divorced. But a business trip brings him to New York for a bit so we get to see some of our old favorites from other books, which is always fun. Naill and one of the other guys from the company were to travel to NYC but something has come up and instead of Andrew coming along with Naill, Ruby, Andrew\’s intern is coming with. Ruby has had a huge crush on Naill ever since she laid eyes on him 6 months ago. But Naill\’s has just started to notice Ruby. But when he takes notice things really start to heat up. The thing I like the most about Beautiful Secret is that Naill\’s is the one that\’s inexperienced with relationships instead of a play boy. He\’s only been with one woman, his wife. Ruby is the one with the experience and she helps Naill\’s get out of his comfort zone. While Naill\’s is older, Ruby is his match in every way from the bedroom to the meeting room. The two really work well together on all levels. The dual narration that Charlotte Penfield and Jonathan Cole brought to the series was amazing. I already love Cole\’s work as Max and now Naills. I love his performance of the two Stella brothers and look forward to listening to more of his work. Penfield is new to the series and she was perfect for Ruby. She delivers a great performance with the right mix of sexy and innocent that Ruby brings to the story. I\’m not new to listening to Penfield, I listened to her work on one other audio book, Twisted by Emma Chase and like Cole I look forward to listening to her work again. Now that I\’m all caught up on the Beautiful Bastard series I\’m going to listen to Christina Lauren\’s Wild Seasons series while I wait for the next book in the BB series to release. I wonder who it will be about. Christina Lauren has mentioned that Will and Hanna from Beautiful Player will get a novella so maybe that will be next.

The whole Beautiful series has just been great and this one\’s no exception. Christina Lauren certainly knows how to write a book that captures your heart and, with this one, the heartbreaking story of Niall\’s lifeless and loveless 11 yr marriage which left him an emotionally confused and sexually stunted man is so moving. Until the strong, understanding, patient, feisty and loving Ruby slowly and carefully shows him the true meaning of love and he can finally truly embrace how to be loved and how to show love too….. beautiful. Worth a credit? Told from dual POV\’s but I had a problem with the narrators – CP couldn\’t do male voices well and all of JC\’s characters, including the women, sounded the same. However, despite this it\’s still a creditworthy listen but it did lose a point because of it.

I feel guilty about what I\’m about to say, because I ADORE Christina Lauren and literally devour every book that they\’ve written…BUT…Beautiful Secret, left me feeling slightly underwhelmed. The best parts of the book are toward the end! Niall, although endearing, his tentativeness about every emotion, thought,or feeling became annoying. I typically melt for Brits but I couldn\’t get into the narration, from the male nor the female narrator, and that effected my overall perception of the book. I like to lose myself in a book, but I was all too aware for this one. It\’s definitely not horrific, but it was lackluster in comparison to its predecessors. Every author is entitled to a slip up….this was Christina Lauren\’s for sure.

I love this story! I loves that he was older but she was more experienced and taught him how to feel his emotions!

Real life like story with situations that any women has found herseld in. I laugh and enjoyed every chapter.

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