Beautiful in order, with the short books left in

Beautiful Bitch and Beautiful Boss are different books. Neither is a typo. Christina Lauren's series makes a strong case for writing down the next title before closing your e-reader.

The attraction here is contemporary erotic romance with an interconnected circle of characters. The central pairing changes across the novels. If you would rather stay inside one relationship for an entire series, Crossfire is the closer fit.

Pick a route before buying a bundle

The full list follows the publisher's ten-book collection. It puts the short books between the novels. The leaner route is Beautiful Bastard, Beautiful Stranger, Beautiful Player, Beautiful Secret and Beautiful. You can come back for the novellas, but expect them to refer to relationships already established elsewhere.

I prefer to show both routes because 'all the books' is a surprisingly slippery phrase. Sometimes you want every extra scene. Sometimes you have one library loan left and would rather spend it on the next novel. Those are both reasonable reading plans.

This is the livelier corner of the shelf

The authors describe the final novel as a road trip involving friends, mismatched temperaments and wine. That gives you a better clue to the tone than a row of chili icons. Start here if you want explicit romance with room for comic situations, rather than making danger your main selection criterion.

• Office tension. Workplace attraction brings a power imbalance with it. Check the premise of the individual novel if boss-and-employee romance is a deal-breaker.
• A changing cast. The benefit is variety. The tradeoff is that your favorite couple will not remain at the center of every book.
• The final reunion. Beautiful draws on the wider group. Read the earlier novels first if you want the returning characters to mean something.

The sample is a better filter than the cover

Read a few pages for the banter. If the dialogue irritates you, a higher heat rating will not fix it. If the humor lands, the shorter books offer another way to spend time with the cast without starting a separate fictional world.

The distinction in our erotic romance and erotica guide matters here: a sexually explicit story can still be organized around a developing relationship. You do not need to count scenes to decide whether the book belongs on your romance shelf.