Title: Priest (Love Story #1)

Author: Sierra Simone

Publisher: No Bird Press 2022

Genre: Romance

Pages: 378

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Featuring one of the “Seven Deadly Sins”; Romanceopoly - Passion Place

Spice Meter: 8 (for the taboo nature of the pairing)

There are many rules a priest can't break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot forsake his God. I've always been good at following rules. Until she came. Then I learned new rules. My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I'm twenty-nine years old. Six months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again. I am a priest and this is my confession.

CW: Suicide, Sexual Abuse

I am so very disappointed in this book. It’s been all over Bookstagram; featured on all the super spicy romance lists. But I came to the end of the book very uncomfortable and not turned on at all. My main issue with this book really centers on the religion piece. All of the characters seem to take their faith very seriously, but also reject all the “rules” that they claim to be so important. I couldn’t wrap my brain around these seemingly contradictory stances. I was very uncomfortable with how the characters try to find the loopholes and edge cases to justify their actions. I would have greatly preferred if they realized that they didn’t actually believe in the religion at all. But it continue claiming to be believers and still not really repenting for their transgressions just felt icky to me. I was hoping for a good deep dive into the ways that the Catholic Church has mishandled the abuse scandals and it’s current stance toward sex, but that seemed to be teased at the beginning and then pushed to the side. At the end, it seemed like everything the characters did was justified because they got married. I just couldn’t with this book. I will not be reading the sequels.

Love Story

#1 Priest
#1.5 Midnight Mass
#2 Sinner
#3 Saint

Next up on the TBR pile: