Beautiful Bastard - Christiana Lauren

Contemporary. Erotic, m/f

Rating = 3 stars

Read Dec 2012

*ARC courtesy by Gallery Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*

I was interested to read this book as I had been made aware that this was a fanfic of Twilight that had been reworked and edited. Firstly I need to point out there is no relevance to Twilight at all, I have never read The Office (the fanfic or any other for that matter) but this is not a book for YA. Nope. Not at all.

OK then on with the book that is Beautiful Bastard who is Bennett Ryan, who is the powerful executive in his family media business. Chloe Mills is the intern in her final months of her internship working directly under Bennett (in more ways than one!)

Bennett had returned from a long stint working in France. Chloe had been working for the Ryan firm for six years and had gained the respect and friendship of the Ryan family who had taken her under their wing. She in return totally respected them and was a hard working intern for them. Then for the last nine months she had been working for Bennett. This was not a good working relationship. In fact they despised each other. Why?

The first part just did not gel for me. There was not much plot and needed more “meat on the bones” of the story. What was the background of the main characters? Why did they hate each other so much? Then came the first sexual contact and from then on it was constant. In the office, on stairways of the building (bet Security loved that although no mention was made of the cameras – maybe Ryan’s building did not have cameras huh?) Then they were at it in the lingerie store (and nobody heard or saw them?)

I found the switching between POVs a tad frustrating too as I had to read the first paragraph before I could figure out whose thoughts they were.

I get that Bennett was only recently on the scene and that sparks had been flying almost since they had met. Yes hate is a close relation to love but seriously? What was the reason for the hate? Would Chloe jeopardise her position at the company and so close to her finishing her internship and also in view of her deep respect for the family? Why would they both want to have hot raunchy sex with each other when they couldn’t (allegedly) bear the sight of each other? I needed a lot more character development to be able to understand this.

I liked that Chloe was not a whiney ass female and that Bennett was a strong alpha male (he was The Boss! As he kept reminding us) I also liked the kink of the knicker/panty ripping – yes people do have strange fetishes and Bennett’s was taking panty souvenirs haha.

However I did like the storyline of last quarter of the book. It was a good HEA but no reason to link it with the earlier behaviours and why all of a sudden these changed. Maybe it was the bed – yes always best to try it out on a bed. Good relationship developments happen in beds!

Overall it was an OK read and I did enjoy it but with a little more story in the beginning it could have been much better.

Thank you to Gallery and Edelweiss for the ARC and the opportunity to read this before publication.