Sierra Simone's Priest Series

This entire series requires a few disclaimers: 

• The trope is forbidden insta-lust/love. You need to suspend some disbelief and roll with it to enjoy the stories. 
• There are HEAs even though they are improbable and could only happen to people insulated by their privilege (here we mean someone is always filthy rich). 
• The spice is easily 85% of the point here, don't overthink it. 

 That said, I have enjoyed the whole series.

 

Priest by Sierra Simone

Rating:   ✩✩✩✩✩

Priest was one that had been on my TBR for a while. BookTok went wild for it and Bonkers Romance is all-in on the series. However, I went in with some skepticism because I have been burned by BookTok before. It is exactly as one would expect from a taboo-relationship romance. Hot priest with a tragic past meets a sexy damaged woman. Neither can resist the pull. Much sex occurs, it all works out in the end. The characters are archetypes, the insta-lust is off the charts even by trope standards and the HEAs are impossibly tidy. Super fun read that hits all the romance classics with artfully written spice.

Book #12 of 2023

Midnight Mass by Sierra Simone

Rating:   ✩✩✩✩✩

Midnight Mass was the obvious next read after Priest and it is exactly as promised. What happens after the grand gestures and implausible HEA? Life stuff. So here is a quick-one evening read that follows Tyler and Poppy once the novelty of whirlwind romance fades. Has the standard mix of everyone being themselves to the max, miscommunication and drama that fuels the whole series. Good stuff.

The special edition series republished 15 March 2022 by Bloom Books

Book #13 of 2023

Sinner by Sierra Simone

Rating:   ✩✩✩✩✩

Sinner as the next in the series was a slightly deeper read than the previous book and novella. While Simone has done an interesting job of exploring religion as a foil for the romance, the plot here really thickens in meaningful ways. Using our favorite tropes of “age-gap” and “secret relationship” Sean and Zenny’s story explores what happens after the insta-lust turns into something more and just how that impacts real lives. With the backstory of the entire Bell family progressing as a mirror for what Sean and Zenny are learning about their respective faith, this book was a much more emotional narrative than its predecessors. While the spice is still USDA Grade A and the HEA is fairy-tale improbable, this is by genre standards (which are high, I love Romance) a “serious” read.

The special edition series republished 15 March 2022 by Bloom Books

Book #14 of 2023

Saint by Sierra Simone

Rating:   ✩✩✩✩✩

This book in particular blew all the others out of the water. While many of the points in the above disclaimer apply, Saint is less a spicy romance and more a treatise on mental health and healing. Simone presents a really interesting perspective on where faith and reality meet along with all the ways that faith can be expressed even in actions that Catholicism specifically shuns. While the idea of Catholicism as somehow redeemable seems awfully doe-eyed in a post 1000s of dead Indigenous children in unmarked graves world, Aidan's exploration of faith as a foil for his exploration of being a person worthy of love is powerfully well-written. The romance itself is almost wholly uninteresting in the face of the recovery-narrative, though the tropey secret-relationship that ends in a neat HEA (because (again) money makes for a nice soft landing) will scratch the romance itch quite well.

I really hope that Simone does write the additional books in the series mentioned in the end notes, I would love to see more!

The special edition series republished 15 March 2022 by Bloom Books

Book #51 of 2023