Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Contemporary Romance and Adult Fiction
Warnings: Religion, LGBTQ discrimination
Steam: 3/5
Summary: via Goodreads
Thank you to @berkleyromance and @netgalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Hot Under His Collar will be released on July 20th.
Father Patrick Dooley isn’t “like other priests”, (I think this means he’s more liberal and welcoming that others). Patrick joined the clergy to fulfill his mother’s dying wish but it was never his true calling and he doesn’t know what else he would do. Sasha Finerghty has a major crush on Patrick, the man she can never have, and therefore she dates men who are perfect on paper and not in real life. When Patrick’s church has a funding issue, Sasha steps in to help fundraise to keep the pre-school afloat. The more they get to know each other, the easier it is for them to fall for each other. Will they take a leap of faith for love? Or stick to what they know?
This one wasn’t really for me in the end; I had read the other two in the series (liked one + DNF’d another) so I was curious about the third. This is not really a trope you see a lot (or ever), but my thoughts the whole time as I was reading were…”Is the internal monologue always going to be how much they want to jump each other?” And it was, 70% of the time and the other 30% was actual plot. Sasha’s family was manipulative + borderline abusive. I wanted a better resolution for this and never got it. Patrick’s reasons for becoming a priest were also a lot more out of guilt than faith. I had trouble with the lack of background + character development and I feel like if there was more of this, the story would have been better.
If this is a trope you are interested in, the Intimacy Experiment did an excellent job and one of my favorite romances of the year!
Love,
A
All in with A 