Priest: Part One-- these two people are like so hot, and he is a priest

Hi! It’s been a while. Sorry! I’ve been very busy. 

I have a fun announcement for you– we will be doing a 9 day installment review of Priest by Sierra Simone! My hold finally came through at the library and it runs out in 9 days, so these reviews will be coming out daily. 

Let’s start with some (slight) background. Priest was written by Sierra Simone and came out in 2015. It remains hugely popular, with the prologue regularly going viral on booktok. At least, it regularly pops up on my feed and I am tangentially on Booktok, so I can only assume that it goes viral. This is a summer project so I will not! be doing! research! 

Sierra Simone is an adorable and funny human being, and from what I’ve seen on her socials I like her! Everything I say in this review, I say with love and a large heaping of salt. (Which is also how I take my eggs.)

This book came out pre the canvication of romance novel covers, so here we  get a shot of a shirtless man praying. I guess priest’s have a lot of time to workout? If I were to judge a book by its cover, I would say that this will feature a very typical male lead and focus on the physical aspect of the relationship. 

Am I right? Yes. No need to read the book to know that. But let’s get into it anyway. 

The book opens with a prologue from our male main character, Father Tyler Bell, voiced by Jacob Morgan. He has featured before on Pure Honey, creating our very own cinematic universe! Morgan voiced Josh in Lights Out, and more importantly, Christian Grey in Darker. For those of you who don’t know, that book is EIGHTEEN HOURS LONG, and details Christian’s emotional abuse from his perspective (and, of course, romanticizing it.) All of this to say 1. You should check out my 50 shades series and 2. This book immediately raised my hackles in ways that were not its fault.

Anyway, we get this intro, and this book comes in strong. “Seven months ago I broke my vow of celibacy, and god help me I would do it again. I am a priest, and this is my confession.” 

After the prologue, we jump back in time to our two main characters meeting. 

Tyler is in the reconciliation booth hearing a confession from a member of his church. This marks the beginning of the book’s philosophy on the ethics of passion and lust, which I assume will be key points in a romance novel about a priest. The man confesses sins such a slight envy and impure thoughts, and Tyler does not have him say Hail Mary’s, but instead asks him to think about how his life direction may be leaving him unfulfilled. We get some plot background that there was some sort of scandal at the church that leads Tyler to act as the perfect priest– “I had been assigned to this parish because of its painful history, and my own.” 

Tyler moves to exit the booth and start his free afternoon, when low and behold, someone else steps in to confess their sins. This is, naturally, our as-yet-nameless female main character. Her voice is described as “the oral rendering of moonlight.” Tyler is immediately more tempted to break his vow of celibacy than he has been in the three years since he took it, just based on the sound of her voice. She says she has never been to confession and hers is one of a “carnal” nature which immediately gets him all riled up. But then, she admits to having done something “really bad” and not knowing what happens next. He gives her some genuinely touching reassurance which makes her cry and leave without giving her full confession. 

Next, we get a look into Tyler’s daily routine, his place in the parish. We also get a peek into his sexual history. Now, I’ve read a lot of romance books for this blog, and most of them follow the same structure. So I was excited to see something new here, with perhaps a more experienced woman and a less experienced man? It’s an almost non-existenet dynamic in the romance world. Alas, Tyler makes it clear that he is “still very much a man who liked fucking a lot before he heard the call three years back.” The scene is being set here for Tyler not only to be experienced, but dominant as well. Which is fine, just a little boring. 

We jump forward a week, and then, guess who comes back– the mystery woman with the sexiest voice in the entire world! We get a longer confession from her, which is when I learned that this book is dual narration. Our female main character, now revealed to be named Poppy, is voiced by none other than Elena Wolfe, who some may remember voiced Aly in Lights Out. And to be fair to Tyler, Elena Wolfe does have a great voice. 

As for the content of the monologue, I’ll be honest, it didn’t hold much weight for me. It’s held up as this big emotional moment, a point of connection between the characters, where Tyler connects with Poppy on a more personal level, but it didn’t hit home. Poppy confesses that she used to work at a place that is “sinful”  but that she wasn’t a prostitue. (I assume stripper). She says she has this piece of her that doesn’t fit in with the good-girl life her parents want, but giving into it means losing all the rest of her. She wonders then if she’ll ever be able to fit in anywhere. She’s been trying to do good deeds, but good deeds don’t keep the bed warm. 

This all seemed kind of confusing to me. Poppy does’t think she can fit in anywhere because she has a libido? She doesn’t think she can be a good person and have a partner, or someone to sleep next to? 

I’m guessing that the book will treat this as an example of Poppy buying into purity culture and working through her guilt, but I still didn’t find a whole lot to empathize on her with. This might have been just because the monologue was so vague. It may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but this is a book with two main characters, and so far we’ve only gotten the perspective of one of them. Therefore, it’s important that this passage from Poppy really helps the reader connect, because we don’t know anything about her character other than that Tyler is really attracted to her. 

Tyler does not share my ambivalence about Poppy’s confession, and steps out of the booth so he can see her, hoping that will help them connect. This is when we learn, shocker, that Poppy is like, really hot.

Tyler thinks some super helpful things about this woman in emotional distress, such as “I want my dick in that mouth. I want that mouth crying my name.”  Just in case you had forgotten that this is a romance novel. I have to say, jarring to hear a priest say that, which given the content of the book, I’ll have to get over at some point. 

We learn here, and it’s not important to the plot but I can’t help but include it anyway, that Tyler also has a magic voice. “I hadn’t meant to say her name, but I did. And when I said it, I said it in that voice. The one that use to have women dropping to their knees and reaching for my belt without having to do so much as say please.” Tyler sees Poppy’s pulse jump in her throat at his change in voice, which is crazy because he’s standing multiple feet away from her.

It seems that both Poppy and Tyler are both sirens. The sound of their voice makes people lose their minds and their clothes. I didn’t know this book had a magical eliment, but I look forward to the parts with sailors. 

Today’s section of the book comes to a close with both characters running into each other on their several mile long early morning run. We get yet another description of Poppy’s physique, and Tyler is still super into her. Two really hot young people who get up early to run several miles are really into each other, which is like a huge problem for both of them. You understand, I’m sure. This situation is super relatable.

Takeaways:

1. Poppy has no character depth. She is a really hot, seemingly sad young woman, and Tyler is really into her based on knowing nothing about her at all. If she doesn’t start to seem  more like a real person, this book will get very boring very fast. 

2. Tyler is literally so hot. We know this because he tells us. He has a special voice he uses that makes women want to give him blowjobs. It totally works on Poppy, and she completely reciprocates his feelings. We know this because he tells us.

3. Mom, this book is super explicit. I’m so happy that you support me but I’m going to have to ask you to skip these reviews. Thankyouloveyoubye.

4. Poppy doesn’t seem like a person’s name to me. I also keep accidentally writing Poopy and  I’m warning you now that over the course of nine posts a “Poopy” may slip through my edits. Be forewarned. 

Overall, I couldn’t help but notice that so far this book reads not like a female fantasy, but a male one. We don’t know anything about Poppy, we go a good chunk without even learning her name. The issues she struggles with currently seem pretty surface level. This beautiful young woman with a sultry voice shows up and says “I want to be a good person but I’m so horny and good deeds don’t give me someone to sleep with, Father” which is pretty two dimensional as far as character goes. However, it is still very early on in the book and I am keeping an open mind that Poppy will feel more real as a person.