Clergy Hero – The Smut Report

Review: The Lord I Left by Scarlett Peckham (2020)

July 25, 2021 Ingrid

The Secrets of Charlotte Street, Book #3

Heat Factor: I’m way too prim and proper to tell you how smouldering this gets, but it burns

Character Chemistry: I have never been so distraught thinking that two people were doomed to be apart in my entire life, honest truth

Plot: Alice learns that her mother is at death’s door and accepts Lord Lieutenant Henry Evesham’s invitation to deliver her home as quickly as possible despite his role as an evangelical reformer tasked with investigating the sex worker trade and recommending changes. This is nuts, because Alice is currently a housekeeper in training to be a whipping girl at a house of pleasure in London…

Overall: Look, take everything you thought you knew about sex work and faith and romance novels about the above and just toss it out the window because this book is about to shake you to your BOOTS, I’m telling you

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Review

Review: Hot Rabbi by Aviva Blakeman (2020)

July 23, 2021July 23, 2021 Erin

Heat Factor: They have sex (a good bit of it), but it was more focused on the emotional connection and the kissing and touching than on the arousal and orgasms

Character Chemistry: Just because there’s an instant connection and attraction doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing from there!

Plot: Shoshana has a lot of emotional baggage associated with the synagogue. New hot rabbi single parent David would like to date her.

Overall: This story has a lot of good energy. Definitely a good one for people who like their protagonists to be checked in and thoughtful.

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Smut Reporting

Impotent Ministers

July 22, 2021July 21, 2021 Holly

Back in the spring of 2013, when I was still a starry-eyed graduate student who thought I’d be a superstar academic (ie, before I discovered that I loved school but didn’t love research), I presented a conference paper called “Impotent Ministers and Harem Girls: Reading Religion in Romance Novels.”

My original plan was to dust it off and throw it up on the blog, since we’re talking about Men of God this week, but, uh, there are a couple of bits in there that I find cringeworthy, now that I’m fully immersed in Romancelandia. Like, I was convinced that my very unscientific survey of traditionally published regency romances in the past five years was indicative of trends across the genre as a whole, which really points to how myopic I was about what the world of romance entailed. I also referenced Fabio. [cue the pitchforks]

I also decided that, for the purposes of the blogosphere, I’d stick with a narrow focus, and just talk about impotent ministers here. Maybe I’ll bring out the harem girls another time.

So here’s a marginally revised excerpt from that conference talk. Even with the caveat that my data is outdated and my sample unrepresentative, I still think there’s some interesting stuff going on with the way romance novels depict religion (religious people, actions, and spaces). Note that most of the characters I discuss are secondary characters; I’m, for the most part, not analyzing the heroes, but the characters around the margins.

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Review: The Wicked Lady by Mary Lancaster (2017)

July 21, 2021 Ingrid

Blackhaven Brides, Book #2

Heat Factor: I mean, he’s in the clergy and she’s a blacklisted widow who refuses to publicly grieve, so the “but we mustn’t” factor is steamy from the get go, and it just takes off from there

Character Chemistry: The witty banter between these two is just *chef’s kiss*

Plot: Lady Katherine has been widowed and although reality is far from the story being spread throughout the ton, she’s been shunned to the seaside village of Blackhaven all the same. Grant, the town’s substitute curate, is just about everything you could hope for in both a curate and a future hubs, but he’s also got some secrets about his own past cooking up some trouble…

Overall: I LOVED this book—it’s deep and messy and has that element of forbidden foxiness (but not in a squicky way). All around a great read.

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Dueling Review, Rant

Dueling Review: Hot Under His Collar by Andie J. Christopher (2021)

July 20, 2021July 20, 2021 smutreportteam

The Nolans, Book #3

Review of The Nolans, Book #1

No one would ‘fess up to actually requesting the ARC of this book, so we decided to read it together! (Also, the last time we read a priest book together it went really well!!!!)

Welcome to Dueling Reviews: More Priests for Everyone Edition!

Let’s start by all giving our overall rating for the book:

Holly

Heat Factor: The scene where she masturbates in the bar was pretty hot, but otherwise it’s nothing to write home about.

Character Chemistry: They really want to bone, but they can’t.

Plot: Sasha has the hots for a priest. Patrick is a priest, but has the hots for Sasha. Angst ensues.

Overall: Honestly, the priest bit was the least infuriating part of this book (and the priest bit was pretty darn annoying).

Erin

Heat Factor: The cloud of shame over the sex really cast a pall on everything that went on.

Character Chemistry: Mostly based on them separately processing their naughty feelings.

Plot: Catholic guilt + disillusionment with Catholic doctrine

Overall: This book probably succeeds on the “processing Catholic identity as a progressive” front, but that didn’t necessarily make for a super satisfying romance.

Ingrid

Heat Factor: It’s got some hot bits, especially if you like things really forbidden.

Character Chemistry: They’ve already been swooning after each other before the story starts.

Plot: Everyone wants what they oughtn’t have.

Overall: It’s pretty classic and it certainly had an engaging plot, but I did feel like the end could have been more satisfying.

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