Priest

I actually don't know of this was a good story or not. I listened to the audible version and the narrator was 🥵🥵🥵. I mean it was good enough that I encouraged my friend to listen to it. This was essentially my first spicy book and it did a great job of introducing me into the world of spice.

I would not advise reading this book around anyone since you'll probably be blushing quite a bit. This book is fascinating - written solely from the male main character's POV - and I really enjoyed it. I will say that I prefer alternating POVs (a divisive topic in the romance reader community) and found that I had a hard time liking the female main character. Overall, this book was steamy, interesting, and wonderfully blasphemous. I look forward to Sinner, which will apparently be about Tyler's brother Sean.

Reads like a diary entry. Prime example of why I don't love first person POV

The Catholic in me struggled a little but Jacob Morgan drove it over the finish line for me. 

5⭐️ 5

I didn't have high expectations going into this one, but I really really enjoyed it.

There was spice and love and a story line. I enjoyed the writing style. And I might still be a Catholic if Father Bell ran my church.

I hate 3rd act break ups and this one really annoyed me. It was too long and although our MMC goes through a good amount of personal growth in that time, I hated seeing him in pain. I wanted a happy ending for him immediately. Because I felt he already really thought through his decision and was making the proper one for the proper reason.

I feel like Poppy's lack of communication, although we come to find out for a reason she believed to be good and for the benefit of all involved, And the prolonged breakup kept me from rating this 5 star.

It was really nice to see a smart, accomplished woman with a healthy sexual appetite represented in a way where she embraced who she was and what she liked and how preferring a certain style was making her feel strong and empowered and not coming from a place of trauma and brokenness.

Mom, don't look into this book, and if you do, you didn't see me read it

This is a "dark" romance for those who think a kinky priest having deeply consensual sex is "dark." Which is amazing for those into that! I definitely understood the appeal of Fr. Bell, especially as his darker dominant side is tempered by being a man who cares deeply for others, for their souls, and is an overall very good guy. That being said, Poppy is herself a bit of a Mary Sue (I mean she kind of has to be to be good enough to make a priest leave his vocation). The end felt a little contrived, but it's a solid sexy book if you're into kinky sexy priests. (To which I'd say I am.)

look... I only read this for shits and giggles okay...
when you pick up a book about a fucking priest you expect it to be anything but boring

yet this was sooooo boring ????? no aching no nothing, just intalove and sex scenes

what is the point of putting out such a taboo themed book if is just going to be like (or even worse) every other erotica novel out there?

Kinda spoiler-y...

Now let me preface this by saying that I'm not religious at all and I have no problem with a bit of forbidden romance, but even I found myself cringing at some of the sacrilegious acts in this book. The MMC is a priest, but he acts more like a horny teenager than a man of faith nearing his 30s, and his inner monologue and lack of actual respect for his station and faith was icky. The instalust toward the FMC without even ever seeing her was annoying. The author seemed to try to give the FMC depth by making her highly educated, incredibly attractive, and having an altruistic nature, but completely ruined it by just making her a cheating sex-addicted stripper. The miscommunication then instant reconnection at the end was the rancid cherry on top of this smut-filled instalove book. Meh.

Tyler reminded me of a misguided Cop. The kind of man you meet who is pretentious about what's right/wrong, thinks they're smarter than the rest and that the way to fight and dismantle evil is from within the evil itself. But you come to find out that they're overall lazy, want the easy way out, and yet use their position as a way to keep themselves up on a pedestal for pseudo change and liberation.

Tyler's similar. After his sister experiences something truly awful he decides to keep his faith and become a Priest, a way to offer a fresh start for the people and on his pedestal show “change”

He's on his path of self righteous-ness until he hears a breathy and husky voice in a confession and all of a sudden, fuck God am I right? What's a man to DO when faced against a sexy voice? How is God testing him this horribly? Eye roll

Tyler overall is a very confusing character which tells me perhaps the author wasn't confident in which direction she wanted to go with this. Tyler at any point will be like: “I want to see her choke on my cock” and within the next sentence think “but this isn't feminism!!!”

Yet his feminism is what.... Exactly? Choosing a career that is famously known to hurt and exploit? Oh right he's different though, um, so after realization of what happened to his sister and him repeatedly harping on himself for all the signs he must have missed of her pain, surely he extended his time in understanding more of what women have to endure and go through and educate himself on these signs? No? Okay, how about!! he begrudgingly reminisces over how every girl who he wanted to fuck rough didn't like it because they're educated and independent and every girl who did want rough sex had.... emotional issues? Trauma? They were unloved? This all screams that he surely paid much attention in his women studies classes. By placing women into such tight boxes of x equals x screams feminist mindset to me.

And what the fuck was Poppy? She had no dimension to her. By page 65 she was getting eaten out after using a HOLY confessional booth to talk about how wet she is, how she likes to finger herself, loves to get rammed into... Like sorry Poppy, while Tyler is written like a confused white man you're written low key predatory. She saw her new Priest was hot and said I don't care, even though I spent hours on Google to learn Catholicism - really Poppy was just on Google to figure out how to get into Tyler's pants. She was aware she was well educated and attractive. Admitted she got off on seeing men want her for sexual reasons only. Knew of her sexual allurness and used this all against poor willed Tyler to nab the ultimate forbidden situation of having sex with a priest. Weird Poppy, that's weird.

It's like the author just constantly was back tracking. Wanted a broody horny man who took what he wanted yet valued Godlike etiquette. Wanted a man who was deprived emotionally and sexually, yet valued Woman on the same plain as his God. It was like Simone was trying to cover the tracks for various criticisms. The top example that came to my mind was how Myer was ruthlessly criticized over how Edward watched Bella sleeping from Twilight. And yeah, we should question these things when it's what a teenage girl is reading. But this is SMUT. For adults. I don't want to read Tyler saying he's googling Poppy and her prestigious family and in the next sentence with parentheses (I know this is creepy. I'm sorry) seriously, what?? Lol just Google your silly little slut, jack off, and let's move on. I don't need apologetic behavior from a man who is a fake feminist and clearly shouldn't have thought that by becoming a priest he was going to absolve every bad man's actions cause that's not how allyship works. You can have religion, but you should be very aware of when your actions under your religion become questionable.

The sex scenes were hot. Simone knows how to write a good one. But with Tyler's issues, Poppy being a cardboard cut out of a pile of horny no moral lavender scented trash, the sex was just overall whatever to me. I'm not entirely sure what I wanted from this, but Tyler and Poppy are not it. It landed on that strange line for me when it comes to smut/romance on being too serious or too silly for what the premise should be.

while this is so well written, the lack of communication and connection between the two characters dampened my intrigue and put me off. By connection, i do not mean chemistry - chemistry was off the charts, by connection i mean, they wasnt anything beyond lust between them. It was very sudden for me that tyler came to the conclusion that he not only loved her but wanted to marry her.

My biggest pet peeve in books is miscommunication or lack thereof. It is the biggest turn off, especially when you know the characters are adults and not some sixteen year old teenagers.

Inside you there are two wolves. One is a feminist, the other is a Neanderthal that wants to slap me around for having dinner with my ex. 

So... what now.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

This was pure hot smutty firey smut. I need holy water after reading this

Was there a plot? Sort of. But it was mostly forbidden sexy romance and that was perfectly fine by me

Couldn't finish it and dropped it quickly. Sister died due to a priest's lust and the main isa priest also with uncontrolled lust in the same novel. In alternating sections just to really ratchet up the ick factor.

Holy shit that was very spicy!! I will be reading this again as a guilty pleasure.

Now I'm not Christian at all, so I can't say anything about the religious parts of this book, but i would say, the smut especially at the beginning, was fabulous. At the very beginning, i got to read what i was here for - the sexual tension that is not allowed.


But from there unfortunately, everything went downhill. Tyler Bell literally felt like a horny college character. And i never came to like Poppy at all.
I didn't understand their love at all. They claimed to have chemistry, yes, they had some great sex, yes, but overall, nothing much about their character was built. 

I think i like the IDEA of this book more than the book itself. I might read the third one in this series, I'm pretty sure it's a gay romance. Otherwise, pretty bland, coming from someone who reads a lot of ‘no plot just hot' books. 

3.75

Not a full four because I'm not sure if it will stick with me but was a good read.

I don't get the hype.

it's only get two stars because of the smut, which at some point started getting tedious too

This one is spicy

Wow, this was really spicy! There were some parts that I didn't care for, like when the sex was too rough. I.E - He tells her that he's going to “take” anal from her if she doesn't give it to him and that made my skin crawl. Father Bell also talked about God a lot, I understand that he's a priest but I wish we got more scenes of him just doing non priest related things (other than fking Poppy!).

I'm an atheist and I still really enjoyed this story. I took a star off for the things mentioned above. The story even made me teary-eyed towards the end. I can't wait to read the rest of the series !

• GENRE/TROPES: 
- Dark Romance
- Taboo / Forbidden
- Sinful
- Steamy AF Erotica
- Religious topics
- Insta-Love

• TRIGGER WARNINGS:
- Slut Shaming
- Emotional Abuse

• RATING: 2.75/5 ⭐️
• STEAM LVL:  HOT AF! NC-17

buddy read w/ sarah shelves

i loved the idea of this book and the themes it explored. i just feel like the relationship seemed more lust-based and the idea o them being so in love seemed not completely believable. some themes i wish were explored more because i liked them so much and the pacing at the end was a lil funky ngl. sierra simone does know how to write tho. i love her writing all around and her smut is great 

No me acordaba de que este libro fuera tan marrano aun asi es un 5/5⭐️ por que creo que es uno de los grandes clásicos de Booktok spicy