Crossed is for readers who specifically want a religious man’s obsession to be a source of danger, not only a forbidden attraction. “Priest as love interest” covers very different books, and the one Emily McIntire advertises here is closer to a story about a man who reads his own desire as a battle against evil than to a quiet crisis of vocation.
A priest, a town and a belief about witchcraft
A retail listing of the Sourcebooks edition describes Crossed as a dark contemporary romance and fractured fairy tale. Father Cade Frédéric grew up on the streets of Paris and has devoted his life to the Church. He is sent to become the priest of Festivalé, Vermont, a town the listing calls beautiful but weighed down by despair. Inside him is a darkness that urges him to rid the town of evil.
There he meets Amaya Paquette, the town’s enigmatic beauty, who cares for her younger brother by day and dances as Esmeralda at night. Cade becomes fixated on her and suspects she is using witchcraft to draw him in. He decides to destroy her, even though that would mean killing the only woman he might ever love. Some retailer descriptions call the book a reimagining of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, but the listing used here calls it a fractured fairy tale and does not name a source, so treat any particular resemblance as unconfirmed.
You’re on the list. Your free stories are waiting in the Reader Vault. The Bell Before Dawn
Religious atmosphere, taboo and intensity are three different choices
The question is how readers should choose between religious atmosphere, taboo and romantic intensity, and this book makes a good test case because it blends all three. Religious atmosphere here means a priest’s sense of mission and a small town’s despair. Taboo means a priest’s attraction. And intensity, in this description, means something more specific than heat: it means a man whose certainty about what he is doing tips into harm. Cade’s belief that Amaya has bewitched him is a character’s conviction. It is not evidence of a magical world.
That distinction matters for fit. If what draws you is the church setting and the pull of a forbidden relationship, you may be looking for a book like the crisis of conscience described in our Priest review. If you are drawn to obsession as a source of fear, with a hero whose moral certainty makes him dangerous, Crossed is aimed at that second reader. Anyone hoping the romantic lead will be a dependable refuge from outside danger should read the description carefully, because here the danger and the lead overlap.
Amaya’s life apart from his fixation
The description gives Amaya a life that does not revolve around him: a younger brother she looks after, a nightly persona as a dancer and a reputation in town as an enigma. A second thing to watch in the opening chapters is whether the opening interests you in what she needs independently of his fascination. A heroine who divides her days between family care and paid performance has pressures a possessive observer may misunderstand.
The listing also describes the darkness in Cade as something that urges him to cleanse the town of evil. In practice that sets up a collision for any reader who wants to know where the book places its sympathy: the hero is both the romantic lead and a man whose sense of purpose is described as dangerous.
The Never After series
Crossed is book five of Never After. McIntire’s books page describes the series as six standalone dark fairy-tale retellings in which the villain gets the girl, each with its own couple and readable in any order, and the listing names Crossed alongside Hooked, Scarred, Wretched, Twisted and Hexed. So the number five does not mean four required earlier books. The page also says every villain gets a happy ending, which is a promise about the series as a whole and not a spoiler for this book in particular. The Sourcebooks edition runs 449 pages according to the retail listing; page counts vary by edition.
What readers praise in Crossed
Readers who enjoy Crossed often point to the slow-burn build and the sexual tension between Cade and Amaya. Many find Cade compelling because of his inner conflict, religious guilt and morally gray side, and they admire Amaya’s determination and her devotion to protecting her younger brother. Some appreciate the compassion with which the brother’s disability is portrayed. Fans of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame like the darker reimagining, and a few call it the author’s darkest book yet. Several describe the twists as engaging and the story as emotionally intense, quick and addictive, while reviewers also praise the prose and the explicit scenes. Some say the couple’s happy ending and the resolution felt rewarding. On a major book-review site, more than half of the ratings are four or five stars.
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What McIntire publishes about content
The author’s content warnings page lists these items for Crossed: explicit sexual scenes, religious trauma, self-harm, graphic torture, gore and violence, murder, rape that does not involve the main characters, stalking, peeping tom behavior, drug abuse, bullying of a child on the autism spectrum and child abuse. The page also notes that the Never After books carry a broad range of dark content and that readers should check each title’s list individually. That is the author’s own list for this book. It is not a comprehensive inventory, so consult the current edition’s notes for the details that matter to you.
Who may like it, who may want to skip it
The premise looks aimed at readers who like gothic-flavored dark romance, a morally compromised hero and a story that treats obsession as the engine. It will probably frustrate you if you want a gentle forbidden romance, a hero who is safe from the opening or a heroine who is not the object of a man’s fixation. The warning list is heavy, and readers who avoid graphic violence, religious trauma or sexual violence should weigh it before the premise. In the first chapters, look for:
- Cade’s certainty: does his belief about Amaya read as unsettling in a way you want to follow, or does it make you want to stop?
- Amaya’s own scenes: do you get a clear sense of what she wants and fears independent of him?
- The setting: does Festivalé feel like a place with its own texture, not only a stage?
- The tone: how much does the opening lean on dread, and is that the mood you want?
Reading it alongside Priest
Sierra Simone’s Priest, per her own page, is narrated in first person by twenty-nine-year-old Father Tyler Anselm Bell, who broke his vow of celibacy on the altar of his church six months before the story begins and frames the book as his confession. Its blurb leans into the tension between faith and desire. Both books are priest romances. Priest is a first-person confession about choosing to break a vow, and Crossed, as described, centers a man who blames the woman for a pull he cannot control. These are premises, not predictions about tone or consent, and the two authors publish very different content notes.
Another church-set attraction from this site
The Fallen Priest by Alisson Bento places restorer Verity Vane’s church work close to Father Malachi Graves. The link is a religious setting and forbidden attraction, with professional contact and confession as the elements that bring the two together; it does not establish matching violence, beliefs or sexual content. Use 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 investigating a troubling church commission. Its original couple lives in Blackwood Bay six years before The Fallen Priest; the notes list kissing 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.
