© ✰ Bianca ✰
• 7 September 2021
• Standalone M/M Romance
• Book #3 in the #Priest series
★★★
3.4 Stars
✓ M/M
✓ Second chance romance
✓ Brothers best friend
✓ Daddy monk
✓ Kink, lots of kink
✓ Forbidden
✓ Angsty angst angst!
I can’t have Elijah Iverson.
I can’t have him because he’s my older brother’s best
friend. I can’t have him because I broke his heart five years ago; because he’s
now engaged to someone else—someone kind and dependable who deserves his
whiskey eyes, his soft mouth, his fierce intellect.
I can’t have Elijah because I’ve chosen God instead.
The Bell brothers, though . . . well, we don't exactly
have the greatest track record with vows. But I’m determined to do this monk
thing right—to pledge myself to a cloistered life and spend the rest of my
years in chastity and prayer. But now Elijah’s here. He’s here and he’s coming
with me on my European monastery road trip, and between the whispered
confessions and the stolen kisses and the moments bent over an ancient altar,
my vows are feeling flimsier by the day.
And vows or not, I know in my heart that it would take
more than a good and holy monk to resist Elijah Iverson right now. It would
take a saint.
And we all know that I’m no saint.
(This is the third full-length
standalone in the Priest Collection, featuring Father Bell's brother, Aiden
Bell. You do not have to read Priest or
Sinner to read Saint.)
Aidan + Elijah
They've known each other most of their lives - Elijah is Aiden's older brother's best friend. Aiden and Elijah have been happily in love five years ago. They dated for about a year when things happened and Aiden left.
He left the love of his life behind without explanation ... to become a monk.
Now it's almost five years later and Aiden is still in love with Elijah, but he's also pretty content in his new life.
But suddenly Elijah is right here in the middle of this life. He's writing an article about monks and beermaking and not only is he staying for a week, he'll accompany Aiden on his European monastery tour! Oh, and Elijah is engaged!
LET THE FUN TIMES BEGIN!
Well, I'm not sure what to say.
I think I will mark this whole review as a spoiler thingy - I feel like I would insult too many people otherwise! So if you're very religious or easily insulted... please don't read the following thingy. I might go on a bit of a rant in there.
But you should also know that most people will love this book. It's a beautifully written love story with some or a lot of triggers for mental health / suicide thoughts and for anti-religious people like me!
But I also really liked it, now that I'm done reading and thinking about it a bit. I especially loved the last 20% - I even cried a bit here and there! And I would definitely watch the movie!
DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING ...
I wanted to love this. I was so excited to finally read it. I love the cover!!
But it was just way too much religion for me. I HATE religion and I would normally never read religious books, but I just adore Tiffany Reisz and her Original Sinners series, so I thought this couldn't be too bad either. I thought that this would be a sexy gay dramance and not a recruitment book for future monks. It was just way too much.
I can mostly overlook all the religious moments in Tiffany Reisz's amazing series... But here. It was just too much. Way too much. And I didn't for one second understand why Aiden ended up there in the first place. It was extremely ridiculous. Whatever happened to him, or whatever he suffered from, he could've just gone to therapy or into a mental hospital for a bit. He just had to aks one of his many brothers for help. I know that it's not easy when you're in such a situation to ask for help, but ... I just didn't get the whole monk thing at all. And it takes him almost the whole book to talk about it and then it was even more ridiculous for non-religious people! The almost magic thing that happened? Which in the end was not magic or god at all. But it was still ridiculous. How and why and why in this second. Too much silly coincidence for me. But also the person responsible for saving his life - I SO need his story next! He was basically the best part of this book!
Okay, back to Aiden's religious calling - it's not my job to understand religious things. I don't care about that at all. I liked the non-religious moments, but they were had to find. It was way too much talk about praying and too much explaining or rather monk-plaining. Too many redundant parts for someone who was looking to read a great romance.
But as I just said, I liked the non-religious parts. The sexy and adorable and funny moments. But also. Ugh. I'm saying so much negative stuff here - don't worry - most people will love this book!
I think what I also didn't love love was Aiden. Ugh. So sorry.
He's 37 years old. But you wouldn't know it if he hadn't told us! He acts and thinks like a 17 year old. So immature and naive and ... no idea.
It was just not my book!
I really hope that things might get better once we're traveling!
It got a little better, but only if you were looking to become a monk or a National Geographics photo journalist.
This book is made up of 50% religion. 30% location-descripton. 15% sexy times or thinking about sexy times. And the last five percent are the cute and couple-y and adorable and funny beer and family moments.
But as I said before, it's just me who didn't like it. It's very beautifully written.
The average, typically pretty religious american reader, will love this.
And I will keep on reading sexy books about priests and things like that - I usually like them when they're not too preachy and recruity.
I really hope Father Jordan's book will be a bit better - which it might be, because he's planing to change things in the church. I'm really excited to read this!
I know that the main point in this book is supposed to be Aiden's depression and his thoughts of suicide and how to heal from that or how to live a happy life with it. And for me it's just so unfathomable that people can do that by becoming a monk. But since there are so many religious people in the world, it probably is a good way to help people. If it prevents just one hopeless person from ending their life - I'm all for it!
Okay. That's it!
SAINT was a beautifully written monk-religion-travel-beer-healing-second-chance-love-story!
READ IT!
↓Links to the book & Author ↓
Sierra is a voracious reader of all things including the smuttiest smut, young adult, piles of non-fiction for research, and everything Bill Bryson (especially on audio).
She loves writing the dirtiest things that she can think of, King Arthur, sparkling water, Tarot, coffee, leggings, and learning new words daily.
Her previous jobs have included firing ceramics, teaching living history lessons in one-room school house in full, 1908-approved school marm attire, and working as a librarian for several years—not in that order
She lives in the Kansas City area with her hot cop husband, two children, and two giant dogs. (And two cats, but they're so naughty we don't talk about them.)
The social media she cares about the most are Spotify and Instagram. Following her in those places is a true love language, indeed.
Sierra is represented by Rebecca Friedman of RF Literary; foreign rights are handled by Bookcase Literary.