ARC Review….Beautiful Player by Christina Lauren

Beautiful Player releases TODAY!

Book links:

Synopsis:

In the third book in the Beautiful Bastard series, an agreement between a venture capitalist and a bookish woman quickly becomes a very NSFW version of My Fair Lady.

When Hanna “Ziggy” Bergstrom moves to New York City for graduate school, Will Sumner thinks his responsibilities to his best friend’s nerdy little sister will be limited to the occasional dinner and check-in. Little does he know that Ziggy is ready to break out of her bookworm academic shell and move more into bombshell territory. Of course she figures the gorgeous womanizing venture capitalist Will is the best person to help mentor her in this new field of study: dating.

Will takes on the challenge with more than a healthy dose of skepticism and humor, but soon finds that Ziggy just needed a tiny push, not a world of change, to reveal a woman every man seems to notice. Soon “Ziggy” is gone and the unfiltered, innocently seductive Hanna Bergstrom is hijacking his dreams, his moods, and even his orderly no-strings-attached dating life—beginning the night his mentoring activities move between the sheets.

My review:

Let me start by saying I’m a huge fan of Christina Lauren’s Beautiful Bastard Series. I was so flipping excited when I got an early copy of Beautiful Player in the mail, but that excitement pales in comparison to the love I have for this book after finishing it. Good Lord. This book is by far my favorite in the series and has left me with a serious book hangover.

As much as she hates to admit it, Hanna Bergstrom knows her social life is seriously lacking. She doesn’t need her family to point it out….but that’s exactly what they do on their latest visit to see her in NYC. She’s too busy with grad school for a life and dating and all of the distractions that come with it. Plus, she’s never really been good at the whole dating scene and hates the uncertainty of not knowing what guys like or what they want. Her place was in the lab and with all things science related. However, at the suggestion of her older brother, she reaches out to his childhood friend, and her first crush, Will Summer. The thought of seeing Will again after all these years was slightly terrifying, if she’s being honest. He is tattooed, gorgeous, smooth, brilliant, successful, edgy, a combo that threatens to bring back all of those young girl crush feelings back to the surface. Hanna was older now, and surely she could handle hanging out with a friend, right? Maybe he could teach her the ropes of the dating world and help her gain her confidence with the male species. Maybe she could lie to herself and deny she’s completely lost to Will the second she sees him….

Will Summer was happy to agree to see Ziggy, aka Hanna Bergstrom, after not seeing her for more than a few years. Her family had been good to him since he was young and he owes them more than just a few casual meet-ups with his best friend’s younger sister. He owes a lot of the man he is today to the Bergstrom family. Things are going really well for him since he last saw her. He’s successful and happy, not only with his career, but with his regular success with the ladies. Being a fan of control and order, things are just the way Will likes them. Imagine Will’s surprise wen he sees Ziggy and the woman she’s grown into and his immediate physical response to her when they meet early one morning for a run. After spending just a short time with her, he realizes he’s reaction is not only to the beauty she has become but also to her amazing, honest, open, quirky and funny personality. He may have made a promise to hang out with her, but can he make a promise to keep things strictly friend-zone only with her? Not. Freaking. Likely.

My original review was going to read something like this:

“Buy this book. Buy this book. Buy this book. Buy this book. Buy this book.”

But I figured that although I really just want you to trust me, and buy this book, that I should probably write more than that. Oh, I loved this story. There were so many things I loved about this book. Hanna is one of my favorite book gals ever. She is brilliant, nerdy, funny, no, not just funny, HILARIOUSLY funny, open, real and just plain enjoyable to read. Will is delicious. The fact that he’s also brilliant and tattooed under a suit and tie was enough to have me swooning. Together the relationship they have is enviable. What starts out as something innocent turns into something so detectably scorching that I have complete sections of this book that moved to the top of my favorite scenes list. Not only were the scenes hot, but also Hanna’s yearning to learn what makes sex so enjoyable added an honest and open aspect to their relationship that made things so intense. Hanna making Will tell her exactly what he wanted, or Will making her say exactly what she wants him to do….I just have no words. I actually had chills reading some of their interactions. Even the scenes with their clothes on had such an amazing feel. I just loved everything about this book. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like or even one paragraph that I didn’t savor. Have I mentioned I have a serious book hangover right now? *pout*

I also loved seeing our other Beautiful Bastard cast members….Max, Sara, Bennett and Chloe. They were all there along the way and gave some great advice when Hanna and Will needed it.

Now, here we are at the end of my review and my final thoughts for you all are: BUY. THIS. BOOK. Thank you Christina and Lauren for my favorite book in your series and for giving us Hanna and Will, a book couple I won’t ever forget.

Five Loves

About the authors:

Christina Hobbs & Lauren Billings write under the combined pen-name of Christina Lauren. Separated by the pesky state of Nevada, these co-author besties talk several times a day, agree that Ruby Pumps is the best nail polish color ever, and would, if given the choice, spend all day staring at the ocean from the San Clemente pier.