Priest–A love so wrong, it felt like salvation.

‎I have been reading Still waters for two months now and I am in no way happy about it. Some days, I prepare myself for a full on multiple hours read till I'm done with the book and then I remember there's this assignment I'm yet to complete or this upcoming test I have to read for and then, we have exams. Oh, how I loathe exams.
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‎I really don't know why I decided to scroll through my library today but I did and I stumbled upon something I abandoned since 2023. Priest. I realized I never actually wrote a review about this book or told you guys what I felt when reading it. The main character has the name Poppy like the protagonist in the From Blood and Ash series. I decided to go through sentences I highlighted and chapters I bookmarked. It was a questionable book when it came to moral and normal human thinking. Almost the same as how the author of Haunting Adeline manged to endorse us in pages of weird, insane, romance and psychotic. I feel everyone, after reading Haunting Adeline had to take some hours or days to breathe. I spared myself just an hour before I jumped into the Cruel Prince. I can still remember my book reading sequence for 2023 like it was yesterday. I had just started university and life was already threatening to end me but it isn't as overwhelming as it is now so I was still at peace, young and without so much as an image of worry other than my exam grades and whatnot.
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‎Priest was/is an incredulous book. It's a book by Sierra Simone and it's about a Catholic priest named Tyler Bell who ends up falling in love and having a full-blown sexual relationship with a woman named Poppy Danforth. He’s 29, young, and kind of intense about his faith. Not because he’s always been religious, but because his sister was sexually abused by a priest, and then committed suicide when the Church covered it up. That broke something in him. So becoming a priest wasn’t just about finding God-it was his way of trying to redeem the institution from the inside and give it the kind of integrity it lacked when his sister needed it most.
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‎Then one day, Poppy walks into his confessional. She’s beautiful, clearly from money, and seems like she’s going through something. She's lost in her faith and looking for answers. He tries to stay professional, tries to give her spiritual guidance, but he's immediately drawn to her. Like, strongly. And he hates himself for it. But she keeps coming back, and the tension builds.
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‎I wanted both lives—the life where we were believer and priest and the life where we were man and woman—and every moment that passed without my mouth on Poppy’s skin, more and more of my willpower bled away, until I was left with the uncomfortable knowledge that I would endure whatever guilt or punishment I had to in order to touch her again.
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‎Eventually, they break. Tyler initiates it, he gives in first. They end up having sex at the church. After that, it’s not a one-time thing. It turns into a full-blown affair. It’s extremely physical and intense, and they both know it’s wrong, especially Tyler. He feels guilty, but also alive in a way he hasn’t in years. And honestly, the sex scenes? They are so explicit. Multiple times, I had to scroll past them.
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‎Throughout the book, Tyler is constantly torn between his desire for Poppy and his role as a priest. He keeps trying to justify it, pray it away, or convince himself that they can exist in this weird, secret middle space. But it eats at him. He starts to unravel emotionally. He still believes in God. He still loves the Church. But he also realizes that maybe he became a priest for the wrong reasons-that it was about guilt and control more than calling.
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‎Poppy, for her part, falls for him too, but she also doesn't want to be his secret forever. She's not trying to ruin his life, but she wants something real. She asks him to choose. And Tyler, thinking he has to make it right, chooses the Church. He breaks it off with her. It destroys them both.
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‎But in the end, he realizes he can’t live that way. He doesn’t want to be half-alive, lying to himself. He leaves the priesthood. Publicly. Honestly. And he goes back to Poppy-not as a priest sneaking around, but as a man who finally chose what he really wants.
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‎They don’t have a perfect fairytale ending, but they’re together. Openly.
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‎At first, you would be weirded out. I can't even lie. Especially if you're really religious. I had to force myself to read it and at some point, I felt guilt for enjoying the book cause it was weird and I didn't really roll with anything religious in books. Best to stay clear off them completely. But this one, it was good to say the least. The author did a great job in telling the story, everything was well crafted and it flowed so well. If I was to rate it, it'd be like 3/5 out of 5 stars and that's just because it irked me out at first.
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‎Thanks for reading;)
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