Priest is for readers who want a forbidden romance told as a confession, with the narrator’s faith and his desire arguing with each other on the page. Sierra Simone’s official description keeps the vocation at the center of the question rather than treating it as a costume for a taboo, which is the reason to try it if religion in romance interests you at all.
A priest tells the story himself
Simone’s page for the book presents Priest as a first-person romance narrated by Tyler Anselm Bell, a twenty-nine-year-old priest. He begins by noting what priests are bound by: rules against marriage, against abandoning their flock and against forsaking God. He has always followed them, he says, until a woman arrives and he starts living by new ones.
The hook is placed early. Six months before the story opens, Tyler broke his vow of celibacy on the altar of his own church, and he says he would do it again. The book is framed as his confession. That framing tells you a lot about what you are signing up for: you are not discovering whether he will cross the line, you are hearing him account for having crossed it, and the page pairs religious themes with explicit sensuality.
The confessional frame also shapes the experience in a practical way. Because Tyler is the narrator, everything you learn about the woman, the church and his doubts arrives through his account of it. That can feel intimate and immediate, which is what the page seems to promise, and it can feel narrow if you prefer to see a relationship from both sides. The blurb is written in the first person, so a reader who dislikes that choice should know it before opening the book.
You’re on the list. Your free stories are waiting in the Reader Vault. The Bell Before Dawn
Does the book engage with faith as well as desire?
The description answers that question as far as an official description can. The page leans into the tension between faith and desire: the blurb closes “I am a priest and this is my confession,” and an author endorsement quoted there pairs theology with kink. A priest who values his promises, rather than a man chafing against arbitrary rules, makes the conflict internal. He can want the relationship and also believe in the commitment it disrupts, and neither feeling has to be false for the other to be real.
Whether the novel resolves that conflict in a way that satisfies your own beliefs, or treats religion with the seriousness you want, is a matter for each reader’s taste. What the opening pages show is the quality of Tyler’s voice: whether his way of explaining himself makes you want to keep listening, even when his choices are hard to defend.
Reading order and the larger collection
Priest is the first book in the Priest Collection. Simone’s collection page describes the series as a taboo erotic romance collection about faith, duty, sex and love, and recommends starting with Priest, which it calls a standalone about Father Bell and a woman named Poppy. A novella, Midnight Mass, continues their story. Sinner and Saint are separate standalones about two of Bell’s brothers, and the page says Priest, Sinner and Saint can be read in any order, with Priest suggested first. A later book, Devil, follows Ryan Bell and Birdie Cooper, and a free short story, Gloria, is set after Sinner. Sinner and Saint both carry a top-ten romance label from a national entertainment magazine on that page.
Simone’s author site describes her as a USA Today bestselling author of adult romance who co-writes with Julie Murphy and Laurelin Paige. Her other collections include Thornchapel, New Camelot and the Lyonesse Trilogy. This matters only for choosing: the Priest Collection is one shelf of a wider catalog.
What readers praise in Priest
Readers who love Priest often single out Tyler himself. Reviewers describe a devoted, principled priest who takes his vows seriously and cares for his parish, and several say his inner conflict feels real. Some readers say the book explores faith, guilt and redemption thoughtfully and engages Catholic themes without mocking religion, and a few note that the research feels thorough. Others praise the prose as lyrical and polished, the slow-burn tension and chemistry with Poppy, and the heat, which many call very steamy. Some appreciate a forbidden romance that feels different from billionaire and alpha-hero formulas, and a few finish it quickly because it is hard to put down. One blogger confirms that the romance ends happily.
From Alisson Bento’s books
Vampire
A vampire romance about a hero who claims her and never lets anyone forget it.
Kindle edition · Check Kindle Unlimited availability on Amazon.
Content notes for this title
The Priest section of Simone’s content notes lists two sensitive topics: clerical sexual abuse, which happens in the past and off the page, and a sister’s death by suicide. The notes page has headings for her other books, so read the heading carefully instead of applying another title’s warnings to this one. That list is the author’s own for this book, but it is not a comprehensive inventory; consult the current edition’s notes. A provocative premise also cannot tell you how often intimate scenes appear or how they are handled, so check the current edition’s notes.
Consider also what the collection structure tells you about the book’s ambitions. Simone’s page presents Priest as the recommended starting point of the collection, with Sinner and Saint following other Bell brothers. So Tyler’s confession is both a self-contained romance and the first appearance of a family you may meet again, which is a reason to start here even if you do not plan to continue.
Who may like it, and what to look for early
This looks like a good match for readers who like intense, first-person narration, a hero with a strong moral code in conflict with himself and a romance that wants to talk about belief. It may be a poor match if you prefer a heroine’s point of view, want faith to stay in the background or are uncomfortable with the setup of a priest breaking a vow. In the first chapters, look for:
- Tyler’s voice: is his confessional tone compelling, or does it feel like performance?
- The weight of the vow: does the opening make his commitment feel real enough that breaking it costs him?
- The woman: does she feel like a person with her own wants in the opening chapters, not only the thing that tests him?
- The faith content: is the theology engaged in a way that interests you, or does it read as decoration?
Reading it alongside Crossed
Emily McIntire’s Crossed, as described in a retail listing of the Sourcebooks edition, follows Father Cade Frédéric, a priest who grew up on the streets of Paris and is sent to Festivalé, Vermont. He has an inner darkness that urges him to rid the town of evil, and he suspects that dancer Amaya Paquette is using witchcraft to draw him in and decides to destroy her. Both books place a priest and a forbidden attraction at the center. The difference is large: Priest is a confession about a man who broke a vow, while Crossed centers a man who suspects the woman of luring him and decides to destroy her. Our Crossed review goes into that book’s own content notes, which differ sharply from Simone’s.
Another church setting from this site
The Fallen Priest by Alisson Bento introduces restorer Verity Vane, whose work at St. Jude’s in Blackwood Bay keeps her near Father Malachi Graves. It is relevant if a church setting, confession and professional contact are what draw you to Priest, but it does not promise Simone’s theology, first-person voice or erotic dynamics. Browse the dark romance shelf to compare.
The Bell Before Dawn is a free adult M/F story about glassmaker Mara Keene and visiting priest Gabriel Rook, whose church commission exposes suspicious glasswork. It is an original couple six years before The Fallen Priest, set in Blackwood Bay, with a kiss and off-page intimacy. Read online; email unlocks the remaining chapters.
Sources checked 20–21 October 2026. Reading suggestions compare advertised premises; they do not promise matching heat, consent dynamics or endings.
