Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 If you like books with awkward, slightly shy, completely inept and uncomfortable dudes falling in love, then Beautiful Secret by Christina Lauren is all your catnip. I'm iffy on New Adult but I loved this book because I loved Niall Stella, the seemingly arrogant and wooden hero who is secretly just super nervous around women. Think uber posh British dude who isn't cool as shit but rather peeing in his designer undies a bit when a pretty woman talks to him. 
 The appeal of this book (and some of Lauren's others, notably Beautiful Bastard) is that the heroine finds out the unobtainable cool dude she's been lusting after is human after all-and he wants her. I like that trope, maybe because I cut my teeth on Harlequin Presents where aloof, super human Greek tycoons were brought to their knees by lavender eyed virgins (true story: my eyes are green with gold flecks and in middle school a boy looked into them and said, as I waited breathlessly, "Your eyes remind me of...my pet lizard's."). 
 Part of the reason I really enjoyed this book is that it's absolutely laden with UST. A lot of time in New Adult the sex happens so fast that a lot of the tension fizzles out. Beautiful Secret does a remarkable job of keeping the sexual content heavy (all Lauren's books are pretty damn hot) while keeping the tension high. Niall is afraid to take the plunge (hurr hurr) so he and Ruby go slow, doing some very, very creative foreplay before he even touches her. I enjoy a story with a lot of sexual tension and a lot of eroticism-give me cock, pussy and clit over staff, sheath and nub any day-and this book had that in spades. 
 Of all of Lauren's books, I liked Beautiful Secret the best. If you like beta heroes, sexually inexperienced heroes, office romance, and hot sex-or if you're just really, really into urban planning-then this is the book for you. 
 - Elyse