So I put a hold on this book in the library when I read the following quote from it:
"There's no instruction manual for falling in love with your best friend's little brother. And there's no manual for falling back in love with him when he's a monk."
Up until the final three words it's just pretty standard gay romance novel fare, and then it suddenly takes a turn!! And that turn is why I picked up the book and it's why this book has the charms it does.
The monk is Aiden, who had been a millionaire playboy with underlying trauma that he decides to deal with by breaking up with his hot boyfriend Elijah and becoming a monk (but like a cool monk, in a cool monastery that's fine with his queerness etc.). But then Elijah comes by because he's writing a big magazine piece on monastery breweries, and also he's engaged now to another man, and Aiden loses his mind and the chastity cage he's been wearing under his robes no longer controls his desires.
The whole vibe of this story is giving these two men in contemporary life a reason why they can't be together that's also extremely hot, and the enforced celibacy of Catholic priests/monks/nuns is a perfect fit for it. It also begins to sag a bit at a certain point, because there's only one way out of this (Aiden leaves his monastery) and also we find out what his Big Secret was for leaving Elijah and entering a monastery the next day, and frankly it doesn't hit as well as it should. But the sexual tension and denial is extremely good, and the way they roleplay with the actual restrictions they're breaking is incredible. I was sad to discover that most of this author's books are either straight Catholic versions of this, which I'm less interested in, or fake modern politics based on Camelot, which unfortunately I simply cannot deal with right now. But this was a great winter read.
Grade: B
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