Beautiful by Christina Lauren is the tenth and final novel in the Beautiful Series. Featuring two characters we’ve met briefly, Pippa and Jensen, Christina Lauren give us a glimpse into what their first meeting is like and play a game of kiss, bang, kill with the characters from the series.
‘Beautiful’ synopsis (so far)
One free spirited Brit. One man weighed down by responsibility . . .
(Also, a disorientatingly sweet Chloe, confused Bennett, grumpy Sara, Max as you know and love him, travel planner Hanna, chef Will, drunk Ruby, content Niall, George–oh, George–a rented van)
. . . and a whole lot of wine.
Why did you decide it was time to wrap up the Beautiful series?
This final book, Beautiful, will be the tenth book in the series. That felt like a really good, solid number! But seriously, after writing all five couples, we felt like we had done enough with each of the characters to let them go live their lives in readers’ imaginations. From a craft standpoint, a cast this big gets unwieldy after awhile, especially when readers want to see each character in the books — which we love, by the way. So, because we know we will always write funny (we try) and sexy (we think) novels, we knew we could do it with a new group of people — such as in the Wild Seasons — and readers would still love them (we hope)!
How does it feel to be finishing the series that started it all?
It’s a little bittersweet, honestly, because we have genuinely loved creating each of these books for people to read and re-read. At the same time, we know what we’re currently working on, and are just as excited about all the new things to come as we are to share Beautiful with readers, so it isn’t as though we’re leaving books forever. We’re just wrapping up this series and doing new, fun, exciting things!
Can you tease us on how Jensen and Pippa come about meeting each other?
Where many couples have a Meet-Cute, Jensen and Pippa have a Meet-Awkward-Crash-and-Burn, and it’s been really fun to work on getting the tone of that juuuuuust right . . .
We love the Bergstrom family, aside from Hanna and Jensen, will we see any others?
Aww! That makes us so happy! We did get to see more of Liv and Helena in Beautiful Boss at the wedding, but not so much in Beautiful. The final book has appearances from every main character from previous novels – Bennett & Chloe, Max & Sara, Will & Hanna, Niall & Ruby and — of course — George, so it does get to be a lot of people to juggle in the group scenes!
After writing all of the men in the Beautiful series do you have a favorite? Was there a voice that was easier or harder to write than another?
In terms of voice, Lo writes Bennett, Niall, and Will. Christina writes Max, and Jensen. Thinking back, Max and Hanna were easiest for Christina to write, and Lo basically thinks in Bennett’s voice every day, so he and Pippa were the easiest. That said, we’ve loved writing every single one of them.
We get asked who our favorite is at every signing, and here’s an answer we’ve never given before, because it’s only come with the wisdom of hindsight: we have a different favorite, depending on the reason. For example, Lo loves to write Bennett — because he’s sort of her braintwin. But would she want to marry Bennett? Hell no – they’d murder each other. Likewise, Christina writes a GREAT Max, but put the two of them together and nothing would get done because they’d be making each other laugh for hours. So let’s play a little Marry, Bang, Kill + bonus question with our Gallery team, one time only, for the beloved Hypable audience . . . here goes!!
Christina:
Marry: Will (He’s smart enough to get us through the zombie apocalypse and hot enough that I’d be too distracted to be scared.)
Bang: Bennett (Bennett scares me, and the adrenaline rush would either kill me or make things interesting, am I right?)
Kill: Niall (I’m sorry Niall! I love you so much but you’re so fancy and I am basically trash. I eat raviolis out of the can. That should put things in perspective for you.)
Rob a bank with: Bennett would get us all killed. Will would be so distracted living out his superhero fantasies he’d also get us killed. Max would take his time sweet talking the tellers and get us arrested. Niall and Jensen would stay calm and collected and save the day. The others can stay in the car.
Lo:
Marry: Jensen. Just trust me.
Bang: Niall. And Will, of course, but let’s be real: that’s a lot of pressure)
Kill: Max. Really I would probably choose to kill Bennett, but I feel like he would figure it out and kill me first)
Rob a bank with: Will. I hear he’s got magic fingers, and if that fails, he could sweet talk his way out of anything.
Adam Wilson (CLo editor & Hipster Jesus):
Marry: George. Because being married to him means he’d stop hitting on me.
Bang: Will. Because even if neither of us knew what we were doing we could talk X-Men afterwards.
Kill: Bennett. Because if you can take down the alpha, you get to reign supreme!
Kristin Dwyer (publicist & Precious):
Marry: Will (back off, Theresa)
Bang: Jensen
Send to a desert island cause I really don’t want to kill any of them: Sorry Max!! (I feel like some readers will kill me for that)
Rob a bank with: Bennett!
Theresa Dooley (publicist & Adorable One):
M: Will
B: Will
K: Not Will
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