Book Review – Priest – Sierra Simone

“This novel is entirely fictional and entirely for entertainment, it’s not intended to offend or provoke. That being said, this novel is about a Catholic priest falling in love. There is sex, more sex, and definitely some blasphemy.

The blurb had me intrigued, but that warning is what made me lock myself up in a room and put up a Do Not Disturb sign! And boy what a rollercoaster!

So Priest is the story of Father Tyler Bell, a 29 year old priest at St. Margarets. Father Bell took his oath 3 years ago after a personal tragedy made him devote his life to the Church, to God. Nothing could make him break that vow. Until she arrives. But Tyler can handle temptation, he’s sure he can… Maybe he just needs some divine intervention….

“I stood for a minute in my slacks and shirt and stared at the processional cross, (feeling a bit betrayed if I was being honest.) If I was forgiven, why hadn’t God also removed this temptation from me? Or given me more strength? To resist it? I knew it wasn’t fair to hope that Poppy would move away or become a Baptist or something, but why couldn’t God eliminate my attraction to her? Deaden my senses to the way she’d felt under my blessing… deaden my eyes to those red lips and bright hazel eyes?

Yes, Poppy remains all he can think about… He wants her bad, he’s starting to feel that maybe he needs her more than he needs his vocation… And maybe he can’t resist the temptation that is Poppy Danforth. Maybe he doesn’t want to.

“I wanted to pray in complete darkness. I wanted nothing between my thoughts and God, in between this woman and my vocation. I wanted everything but my sin and these starbursts in my eyes stripped away. I’m sorry, I prayed. I’m so sorry. Mostly, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry.

And yes, that’s all the story I’m giving you… Because the blurb doesn’t give us much, I went in blind and so should you. I will tell you however, how the book made me feel.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the only other book priest I know, Soren. I also went to a Catholic high school… So I tried very hard to separate these two facts from my reading experience. Tried to not to make any comparisons. I’m not sure I succeeded. I’d been warned there would be blasphemy, and there was lots of it. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that. It seemed unnecessary in my opinion, the having sex in church at the Alter, the using sacred oils for their… well I suppose you’ll read what they used it for. There was also a lot of cursing. I don’t know any real life priests, but that cursing seemed excessive to me… Anyway, all I’m saying is that if you don’t mind the blasphemy then you’ll have an even better reading experience than I had.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the book. I did! In fact, I’ll go as far as to say I loved huge chunks of the book. The steam, if you overlook the locations, was HOT. The writing was just sublime. It was almost poetic in its decadence. The epilogue was probably the best I’ve read all year…. So yes, I did 5 star parts of the book.

I’ve never been more confused as to how I’d rate a book. It had some 4/5 star moments, it had many 3 star moments. So I think I rate it..

3.5 Stars.

Amazon Buy Link -> Priest by Sierra Simone

I’d like to thank the author for providing this ARC for my review.