Priest (Priest, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 30, 2022 Juliana Philippa rated it really liked it

Shelves: cr-series-book-1, romantica-contemporary, 4-to-5-stars, romance-series, 0-own-as-kindle-ebook, 0-own, 4-stars, series-book-1, romantica, 2022-reads

She continued on, oblivious to my sudden discomfort, innocently secure in the mistaken notion that I was simply an input for information, an output for advice, and not a twenty-nine-year-old man.
4 stars
Wow was this a scandalous book! Be forewarned!! If you are Catholic, or Christian at all, you might be offended by some aspects of the book, because sexy times take place all over the place—and I do mean all over the place—and sometimes holy things are used in a way they were definitely not in
She continued on, oblivious to my sudden discomfort, innocently secure in the mistaken notion that I was simply an input for information, an output for advice, and not a twenty-nine-year-old man.
4 stars
Wow was this a scandalous book! Be forewarned!! If you are Catholic, or Christian at all, you might be offended by some aspects of the book, because sexy times take place all over the place—and I do mean all over the place—and sometimes holy things are used in a way they were definitely not intended!! The sexy times are very, very sexy, quite frequent, and definitely explicit; this definitely qualifies as romantica, though I categorized it as contemporary romance also.
Her eyelashes made me hard. That was a new benchmark for me, I had to admit.
Still, if you put aside that aspect of the book, it's actually a beautiful and complex love story. Tyler is a Catholic priest and falls in love with one of his parishioners, which is complicated on so many levels, both personally and professionally. He indulges with her—and like I said, frequently—and is torn between his vow to and love for G-d and his love for Poppy. Everything is told in the first-person from Tyler's perspective, so we don't have as much access to Poppy and the conflict on her side—she of course feels torn because she's pulling Tyler away from his calling and is essentially asking him to betray his vows for her and possibly walk away from life as he knows it. We hear this from her when she tells Tyler and there are occasional sections that are randomly told from her perspective, but they're usually her confession in the confessional.

Tyler needs to come to terms with his love for Poppy and his love for G-d and realize how those two things can coexist. Of course there are some misunderstandings along the way, including a big one in the final fourth of the book which disrupts everything, but I didn't find them frustrating because they push the characters to reflect on their choices and decisions.

Overall, a really sexy book but also a very sweet love story. Definitely a case of insta-lust (which I normally can't stand) and ongoing lust, but there was more to the book than just that—surprisingly so, perhaps.
I wanted to tell her that right now I'd give her anything; I'd give her everything, so long as we could stay in this peaceful bubble of early autumn forever, just the two of us and the leaves and the green warmth that made it so easy to feel loved by G-d.

TW: suicide, child sex abuse/molestation ...more

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