Blurb:
A free-spirited girl in need of a break. A man weighed down by responsibility. A road-trip vacation where all bets are off. Oh, and a lot of wine.
After walking in on her boyfriend shagging another girl in their place, Pippa Bay Cox ditches London for the states to go on a drunken road trip with Ruby Miller and some of her Beautiful friends.
Scaling the career ladder is the default way to deal with heartbreak – and to just deal – for Jensen Bergstrom. Absolutely buried by his drive and workload, he rarely takes time for himself. But when his sister Hanna convinces him to join the gang on a two-week wine tour, he has a rare moment of cutting loose. Of course, it’s only once he’s committed that he realises the strange girl he met briefly on the plane is coming along, too. She might be too much fun for him… or he might realise his life has become too small and needs her to make it bigger, crazier.
With this circle of friends, there’s always something going on: from Chloe and Sara’s unexpected personality swaps to Will’s new domestic side to Bennett’s text message barrage and George’s own happily-ever-after. In short, their adventured in love, friendship, and hilarity are simply Beautiful.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Romance novel, Fiction, Contemporary romance, Erotic literature
- Highly recommend for 16 years and above
- Multi-perspective book
- Book #10 in the Beautiful Bastard series
- TW: Explicit language, Sexually graphic scenes
- Romance Tropes: Strangers to lovers
Book Quotes:
- “Finally Max spoke: “They haven’t tried to kill each other in at least four months. It’s confusing the hell out of everyone.”
- “It’s too bad I’m too eccentric for you. It’s too bad you’re too busy for me. It’s too bad I’m only learning my heart and you have yours rolled up in bubble wrap.”
- “Will dropped the Hiroshima of awkward,” Niall explained, “and Pippa followed up with Nagasaki.”
- “He’ll be very good for someone, and I’m sad it won’t be me.”
- “It didn’t really get easier, per se. Our sadness just got quieter.”
- “Pippa was different. She was an electric charge, a flash of light. Falling in love with Pippa and watching her walk away would be like watching someone extinguish the sun.”
- “We’re going to be horrible parents.” Laughing, I agreed, “The worst.” “We’ve never known failure,” he said, eyes manically searching mine. “I mean, we will probably be the most uptight—” “Strict—” “Overbearing—” “Neurotic—” “No,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes shining again. “You’re going to be perfect.”
- “I hate that I’ve worked so hard but when I look around–compare my life to everyone else’s–it feels like such a small drop in such a massive bucket!”
- “It’s too bad I’m only learning my heart and you have yours rolled in bubble wrap.”
- “Sometimes it feels like I have nothing,” he gasped, “nothing but my job and my friends.” That’s still a lot, I didn’t say. Because I understood: it wasn’t the life he’d imagined for himself.”
- “And I know it’s been a long time, but it isn’t too long to still be royally pissed about it. It was a dream you lost, and that’s bloody terrible from any angle.”
- “We were both on the same page, but then suddenly . . . we weren’t.”
- “I’d follow you past the gates of hell, sir.”
- “in an instant, my world crumbled and was rebuilt into a fortress around my two girls.”
- “I want a fella who notices everything about you when you first met, but would only notice everything that’s missing when you’re not around.”
- “She was such a surprising mix of gentle and brash, of focused and flighty. It was almost as if I could see the little girl in her battling with the responsible woman, figuring out which would lead the way.”
- “I don’t want you to walk away from me after I tell you I love you.”
- “Pippa’s hair was down and fell over her shoulders. Beneath her jersey dress, her body was easy to imagine, and I reached forward, sliding a hand around her waist to pull her just a little closer. I wanted to kiss her. I knew that in part it was the wine, and the beer, and the heady sense of freedom in a small town where I knew no one, but I also knew that in no part was that feeling about Becky. Pippa bounced against me, singing terribly into the mic—perfect for the song, really. Her earrings cascaded down from her ears, nearly touching her shoulders. Her bracelets clanged on her wrist. Her lipstick stained her lips a seductive fire-red, and it made her happy smile seem boundless.”
- “Do you think you could love me, too?”
- “It’s not a crime to love, you know, he said.”
- “The acceptable grieving period for the loss of my marriage and all the things it meant for my life had expired. The rest of the world had moved on. I was supposed to, too.”
- “I felt my heart reaching out, trying to claw its way out of me”
- “I wanted to bottle his sounds and eat them later.”
- “and we wouldn’t have to put our hearts on the line and try to make it anything more.”
- “Thoughtfully, he murmured, “What is it about you?” The answer to this seemed obvious: “I eat a lot of cheese.” Jensen ignored this. “You’re silly, and beautiful, and . . .” “A little daft?” He shook his head, all sincerity. “You’re just unexpected.”