Priest

The review

Father Tyler Bell is a young Catholic priest who has made his peace with his vows. Then Poppy Danforth walks into his confessional and starts describing exactly what she wants. Told largely as Tyler's own confession, Priest is the forbidden romance the rest of the genre measures itself against: a love story about faith, desire and whether a man can serve both.

What sets Priest apart is that it takes religion seriously. Tyler is not a hypocrite or a cartoon; he loves God, loves his parish and believes in the vows he is breaking. Simone writes his guilt and his hunger with equal weight, and the tension between the sacred and the profane is the whole point. You do not need to be religious to feel it.

Poppy is a woman who walked away from a wealthy, scripted life and is trying to work out what she actually wants. She is smart, sure of herself and not interested in being anyone's temptation for its own sake. Their relationship becomes a real negotiation about what each of them would give up.

The heat: five peppers. It is extremely explicit and unapologetically blends religious imagery with desire, which is exactly what readers come for and exactly what some readers will find too much. The intimacy is consensual and intense, and the taboo is the spice.

Know before you start: the author's own content notes mention historical, off-page clerical sex abuse and a sister's death by suicide. Priest ends happily and stands alone, though Simone has written more in the same world. If forbidden is your favorite trope, this is the canonical text.

Read it if forbidden romance is your favorite trope and you want its high-water mark. Skip it if religious imagery in intimate scenes will bother you; it is central to the book. Readers either call it a masterpiece or put it down by chapter three, and there is not much middle ground. Go in knowing the book takes its faith seriously, which is exactly why the taboo lands.