Boozy Bookgasms - The Priest and The Whore

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Audacity by Elodie Hart Join the cousins as we dive into Audacity—where the heroine is an executive assistant who is on call at all times and her boss believes “other duties as assigned” is a lifestyle choice. It’s bold, filthy, and wildly unapologetic, with boundaries being crossed faster than an unread calendar invite. Grab a drink and laugh with us, because this is what happens when ambition, chemistry, and audacity all hit “reply all.”   Signature Cocktail: The Priest and The Whore A cocktail with equal parts devotion and temptation Ingredients The Priest (clean, crisp, righteous) 2 oz Audacity Vodka 1 oz fresh lemon juice ½ oz simple syrup 2 dashes orange bitters The Whore (sweet, seductive, dangerous) 1 oz blackberry liqueur (like Chambord) ½ oz grenadine Splash of ginger beer or soda for a little sparkle Garnish A lemon twist and a blackberry — because duality matters Optional: a tiny sprig of thyme (for that “holy” aesthetic) Directions Shake the Priest: Add Audacity Vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, and bitters to a shaker with ice. Shake until it’s cold and clean. Pour the Whore: In the bottom of a chilled rocks glass, pour in the blackberry liqueur and grenadine to create a deep, sultry base. Bring Them Together: Slowly strain The Priest mix over the back of a spoon so it layers on top like a halo over sin. Finish with a little sparkle: Add a splash of ginger beer or soda to give it a playful lift. Garnish: Add your lemon twist (purity) and a blackberry (temptation) on a pick.

Why is it my job just eating cookies? Is that a real job? Maybe. I don't know. I want that job. I want to find that job. We need on the Pillsbury.com slash careers. All right.

We're getting distracted. Sounds like a great job. Book of literature fans. We're in for some boozy bookgasms today. Join three cousins creating a titillating headspace where steamy romance novels collide with strong cocktails. So sit back. Sip slow. and enjoy the ride.

Welcome back to boozy book chasms. I'm Jen. I'm Lynn. I'm Lynn. Tonight we are talking about audacity by Elity Hart. This is a priest-turned-billionaire workplace romance. But before we go to confession for these sons, Kim, why don't we drinking tonight? Ooh, well, this one's kind of a fun one.

This is actually called The Priest and the Hoar. It's complicated. Yeah, you got to put some work into this one, kind of. of like this relationship. You've got some audacity vodka, which I love because it plays off the name of the book. You've got some lemon juice, simple syrup, orange bitters. That's just the priest. So that's the crisp, clean, righteous part of it.

Now, are we mixing these separately? Yeah, we're going to do it totally separate. Now we have the whore who's blackberry liquor, some grenadine, and a splash of ginger beer or you can use soda. So it's going to be kind of fizzy, kind of buzzy. And then you're going to overpour the whore on top of the priest to layer your drink. So it's really pretty. It's kind of a black berry raspberry color and kind of tangy and very interesting.

You can mess it up. I've done this before where you mess it up and you just, you have to like drink your mistakes until you get it right. You do. I mean, it's actually sacrilegious if you don't. Right. Then you're really going to confession. Yeah. You don't want to piss off.

Drink up. It's good. Bishes. Cheers. Thank you, Kim. So we open with a prologue with our female main character. Her name is Athena. She is a smoking hot redhead attending an event for her MBA class at the University of Paris. She is approached by Camille St. John, who's almost kind of hitting on her. They're kind of circling each other and they're admiring each other's name brand clothing. There's a lot of brand name dropping in this book, which was actually kind of fun. A ton. I mean, the amount of research or background knowledge in clothes and Catholicism is kind of crazy, actually. Yeah, it's intense. It's not surface at all. So this part bothered me because Athena realizes she's some kind of recruiter and had some little hate for recruiters. And I was like, ouch, white got a hate on a recruiter. They just try to do their job. That's not nice. But Camille tells Athena she works for seraph, which is a full service agency. and she explains, they place executive assistants that are all MBA level qualified from top schools who bring a whole host of value to their employers in the C-suite and also the bedroom. And Athena says, you're a madam?

She's a little scandalized and Camille says, I'm a feminist. Imagine the access that a certain level of intimacy delivers having the ear of the most powerful decision maker at a company. I love the justification here. I'm going to put you in this role. you are going to learn a lot as an EA, you're going to fuck his brains out. But then you're going to have all this knowledge. You're going to go to the next EA job. I needed some like, she needs to move up.

You know, she starts as an EA. She makes seven figures doing it. She makes a million dollars, a couple million a year. She makes over six figures a month. Right. But she's in the EA forever as long as she's in this job. So, you know, there's a glass ceiling. Podhole.

I've never had any issue with prostitution. It's the oldest job in the world. If you're going in, eyes wide open. Right, but like, this is like twice the word. I know, but for her, she was like Oxford educated. Oh, yeah. I want to learn from the best. I don't want to start the bottom.

So for her, it was calculated. Oh, total. Which is kind of why I didn't actually like her. I might be surprised. I really struggled with this book. I am surprised because usually like everything. I wanted to like her and there were parts that I really liked about her. And other parts I'm like, um, iffy.

I don't like how she kind of degrades herself. Herself. I really didn't care for that. And I think that was the caveat for me. If you're going into this and you're like, yes, I'm a whore. I love my job. I'm making lots of money. Which kind of she was.

But I'm also worth something. But that is not how she liked to be treated. And I didn't like that. And then we didn't get the reason why. It's one thing if this is her personality. She likes the degradation. But I didn't feel like we got to know her. It was to surface.

So you couldn't connect with her because she was this perfect woman. And she was gorgeous. Oh, totally. All right. So then we meet Gabe. He's been woken out of a dead sleep at a sex club. He's buck naked. The cleaning lady screaming at him.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's like mortifying. I did not know what this was. So Gabe is a 36-year-old ex-priest who recently left his parish and has now a billionaire and CEO of his family's company. You've heard that right. Also extremely hot.

His bull name is Gabriel, like the archangel. Yes. And her bull name is Athena like the goddess. There's a lot of nods to this. Yeah. So he's friends with the owner of the sex club whose name is Anton and the club is called Alchemy. Very posh.

It caters to the wealthy. It's a sex club. Yeah. And there are several books in L.A.R.R. collection around alchemy. I've read a couple of them. If you like this one, you'll like those. Her writing is very consistent. So Anton tells Gabe he's burning the candle at both ends and he just needs to combine his sexual fulfillment with his workplace and save a little time. Anton suggests that. It will only cost you a couple mill a year. Oh my God. And I have the perfect woman. My old EA.

Exactly. Yeah, my leftovers. Perfect. Yeah. I love that for you. And Todd tells Gabe about seraph, which actually means angel. And since Gabe was recently a man of God, this doesn't feel like such a bad idea. No. I mean, I think he's very torn, actually. He is tortured. He gets over it. Multiple times. Gabe is still a very godly man. He has an altar in a secret room in his office and has a priceless artifact that will be referenced throughout the book. He purchased it at Sutherbees and it's an Italian book of ours. I had never heard of this. before. It's a prayer book from the Middle Ages. So he like puts these white gloves on and it's clearly very important to him. Yeah, he does like a whole routine of washing his hands. It's very ritualistic, very Catholic. So long story short, Gabe decides he wants to look into Seraph and specifically an executive assistant named Athena who used to work for Anton and comes highly recommended. And of course, she is already working for someone else, but she's bored and Anton thinks he can get her to at least

talk to Gabe. I thought this entire intake process was very interesting. Super interesting. I was annoyed. You were annoyed? I was so annoyed. Different parts of this book felt drawn out to me. It just took too long.

For sure. Elody Hart, she's a really descriptive writer. She's a beautiful writer, but she does drag out a scene that could have been one chapter, sometimes three chapters. And it's like, woof, like, okay, got it. That's what the scene was for me. But it was still really interesting. Maybe just because I have having a history of recruiting.

So I was like, okay, this is an intake meeting. Gabe tells the madam, Camille, who you may remember from our prologue. Transferable skills, Jen. What he needs professionally. And then she tells him, in a moment, I'll leave you to peruse Athena's files. They're on a computer across the room next to a box of Kleenex. Casey wants to jack off to her CV. Good call, Lynn.

I was thinking, Rennie knows. But yeah, for sure. Wow, your mind went right there, huh? The whole thing is gross. I just, I don't know why I was turned off by this whole process. I'm like, it's like a spank base. I actually would have been fine if he was like, I'm going to hire her cut scene. She's there.

But the whole, the whole vetting process. They just drawn out. I did not like. So this is the process. So he looks through her file, which is her resume, her references from previous clients and a series of photographs, right? They really talked a lot about protecting the women and there's a lot of NDAs and things. like that to protect them. There are two other candidates and Casey doesn't think she's the right fit. So this is very much like recruiting, but, you know, it's a little different.

For sex. It's still recruiting. It's just recruiting for a different type of job. Yeah. That you're willing to pay millions a year for. If Gabe wishes to proceed, they have a very strict hiring process. So first, the candidate comes to his office and they do a regular business interview. The candidate can walk away at any moment if she gets the ick. Next, if both parties, are interested, they go to a dinner where they discuss intimate parts of the contract. Mind you, the entire time, Gabe's extremely uncomfortable. He feels pervy. He feels like he's doing something wrong. He's a former priest. It's a little pervy. He's really struggling. I mean, listen,

he needs this. He does. So they hold dinners in a private spot in a luxury hotel that they trust. And then they reserve a suite in the same hotel. Just in case, it's audition. It's an audition because they can go to the suite and explore the sexual side of the interview. Each candidate Gabe takes to the second round, he has to pay $25,000, which goes directly to the girl. This is the prostitution part, right? And he can audition as many girls as he wants, but it's 25 grand a pop. And that's why, because they don't want guys just going for the interview process. Like, they hit it and quit it. So they charge them to make it hurt. Gabe goes through Athena's file. It's a quick yes for him. She's extremely overqualified with all her degrees. She speaks for language as she's a smarting. His job is wealth

management. Like they have $8 billion in like a family trust. And so his job is managed that and she's a consultancy educated Oxford MBA. She's perfect. She's beautiful. She's smart. They had part that icked me out a little was the references from the previous employer. Oh, this is why this whole part was So gross. I'm so glad you guys are aligned because you always made me feel like such a prude. It was gross. And this one was the worst. Do yourself a favor and more importantly, do Athena a favor and unleash her. Hiring this woman and just fucking her on your desk twice a week would be a travesty. This woman loves dick. She wants it from you. She wants it from your clients. In front of your clients, don't treat her like the fragile little rose she looks like because she will wilt and die. I did not like that. I did not like that. That is true. That is who she was. That is true.

And I have to wonder why I feel this way and haven't dove that deep. She was not endearing to me. I really struggled with her as a character. I wish I'd had some backstory to her. We've had a couple of other books where they're having sex for money. And you kind of hear the backstory of how they got there or why they like it. We never got her backstory. And we got his, like the priest thing.

And we met his family. And she was just sort of a mystery, just this perfect mirage of a woman. It felt very much like, hey, look at me. I really like being a whore. And I didn't like that for her. On the surface, I'm okay with that. It was her choice. She likes what she likes.

Yeah. She's very honest about it. Maybe it was the transactional nature that I didn't like. Maybe. I do like trashy romance. The romance part is very important to the trashy romance thing. And I'm not judging. And we talked about this with Sugar Baby.

I had no problem with the fact that she chose to do that. However we get to the choices we make is how we get there. But we learned her backstory and we kind of understood how she made some of her choices. We never understand why Athena makes her choices. Why she is the way she is. To the average, Joe gets none of my business. But in the book, I want to know. For Sugar Baby, she had no money.

She was like really struggling and she made a choice. This woman, her parents were four. In foreign diplomats, she went to Oxford. She had a ton of money. She was calculating. She did this for a very specific purpose, not because she was like down and out, which you would think would make me feel good about it, but I didn't. But I think it was her kink. I'm okay with the kink. I just couldn't connect with her. It's her attempt to make a very strong female and it might be just a little too strong. She was missing a vulnerability that I was looking for. And she was, she was like stone. So back to our interview press. We're still in like the seventh chapter. Back to the beginning. Chapter two.

So Gabe's at the dinner portion of the interview with Athena. They had the professional interview and went great. She dresses a little sexier for this interview. She's witty. She's engaging. She's sexy. She talks dirty. Like I said, she's the perfect woman.

This girl dresses to the, I want her wardrobe. Like, oh, my gosh. She's a little. smoke show. But she can afford it. And she's gorgeous. Elity Hart can write some dialogue. You really do feel like you're in the middle of the conversation and she does write beautifully better. She extends it to the point where I'm like, all right, already. I got it. Dinner went on, I think, two chapters. A lot of this went on a little too long. Yeah. Long story short, she says to Gabriel, let's take this upstairs and you can take me for a spin. And he gets super uncomfortable.

He's a priest. He's an ex-priest. He's so innocent and cute, though. As much as I didn't connect with her, I really liked him. I was adorable. I did struggle with the sacrilege, but. Me too, Lindsay. I did too, and I'm not Catholic, and I really had a hard time with that.

I'm a non-proxist Catholic. We both all be related. Did you guys listen to the author's note where she said she wanted to write him like an alpha asshole? and then she started writing him and she just couldn't. And she's like, he's a cinnamon roll. I don't know what else I can do. Like, this is just who he's going to be. No, I love that, though.

Yeah, it was really interesting. It's worth going back and reading. It was interesting to see how she got there. And Athena was like a very ancillary character in one of the other book. Yeah, well, Anton's book, obviously. Yes. And a lot of the fans were like, we want more. And so that's how this one came about.

There's a lot of references throughout the book about the priest and the whole. horror and she gets compared to Mary Magdalene in the Bible quite a bit. And I'm with you, Lynn and Kim. I struggled with this. I thought it would be like super sexy and scandalous. I got the ex. I got the ex. Really struggled. I didn't like it. I thought I would like it. So I do want to mention there's very little side plot in this book. In fact, there's very little plot in this book beyond the theme. That was another problem. The two of them. There is a 30-day waiting period for Athena's. During this time, we meet Gabe's family and some of Athena's girlfriends. And I did like her girlfriends. I thought that were really fun. You meet some of the girls that work at Sarah. And she has one girlfriend, Marlowe, who's kind of scandalized by her job. But Marlowe is her best friend. And she is a child who needs a heart surgery, which is like a minor side story. And I do think this friend is probably getting her own book, which is why she gets mentioned so much. But Athena does help her out. Oh, she's getting with the brother for sure. She and Gabe's brother really like each other's. On to Athena's first.

day of work. We get our first churchy sex scene. So like the first thing she does is dropped her knees and she's asking him how communion works. And she says he should pretend he's giving communion, but instead should put his dick in her mouth. And Gabe is like so horrified. And it's like super disrespectful, but he's also kind of turned on. He still puts his dick in her mouth. And she calls him father and says she's waiting for her holy communion. and then gives him a blowjob. Sound like that. I'm not going to detail these scenes because he's so uncomfortable, but we get a couple.

Don't like it. There's another one where the altar that he built in his office space, she goes in there where he prays to the book of hours and she's like buck naked when he walks in there with the intent of praying. And now she's sitting there buck naked. And he even says at some point this is wildly disrespectful of my religion. Yeah. However.

Doesn't bother him that much. I did struggle with those sex scenes. Like there were a lot of really hot ones that weren't religious, but the ones that were, I was like, I need to say like 12 Hail Mary's. Right. I need to go to church now. She was almost trying to take him down a few notches. Good versus evil. In some ways, he was almost lifting her up through these scenes, too.

Like, she started becoming much more vulnerable and respectful of him as it went on because she's saw what kind of guy he was. The special altar. I actually didn't hate that scene. I thought it was actually really hot. Really? While they pray and then she bends over the altar? I feel like that's a bit much. That was his sacred space that she disrespected. She wanted that fantasy. Like you've always wanted to do this to one of your parishioners. And he's horrified. He's like, of course not. Of course I wouldn't do that. Bend over. He wasn't that horrified. He still did it. I feel like that was like almost a blending of their relationship. That was actually a pivotal scene for me.

I felt like it was good versus evil. And evil one. Evil took good down. She was trying to get him to compromise his morals. I agree. So I think you're right, Lindsay. Like eventually he brought her up and made her more of a moral person. As every good priest should.

Sure. Her goal was to break him down. I think he won, even though he was our kind, sweet cinnamon roll person. He did win. He double won. He got all the win. I agree. He came out on top.

And sometimes on bottom. Okay, calm down. I'm just saying, he won a lot. I think that he won a lot. So this is technically an office romance. So we do meet the office mates. We meet George, the personal assistant, who is gay and secretly in love of gay. He could have been awful and he was awful.

He was amazing. He's incredibly materialistic and catty and delicious. Everything you wanted of a coworker, right? Yeah. And a supportive coworker. Yeah, like she was afraid because he clearly had a crush on Gabe and she was like, oh, God, he's going to hate me. And he's like, I can't. You're too fabulous.

Look at your outfit. Like, we're going to be best friends. Please marry him and have his babies. Then we mean, I would see it's a mini antagonist. There wasn't a lot of conflict here. See, this totally could have been better. It could have. So we meet Eleanor Whitmore.

She's chief of staff. She's a legacy employee from his parents. And she's very hoity-to-ty and territorial. But honestly, she's not that much of a pain in the ass. I would say on a scale of one to ten, she's like a two. She's a normal person. Well, that's because we only spent five pages on the woman. We meet Tortie.

Torty. Athena says she's pretty enough in the adciped blonde, slightly inbred. way of the English upper class. I'm like what? Not judging at all. To all of our UK listeners, we have no idea what she's talking about. Like, this is ridiculous. Right.

You're all beautiful. She does clearly want to be Gabe's future wife, but Athena is not threatened. And Tori is never an issue. Tori could have been an issue. She could have been a cuff. Like, we never really hear from Tori again. But day one, it's like, oh, Tori's here. Day one.

And she gets possessive immediately. Yes. And both of these two women who could have been an amazing sort of thing were not at all an issue for either one of them. No. There's not a lot of conflict, but there is a lot of dialogue of them getting to know each other. We do get a lot of interesting sex, including a medieval times themed roleplay sex scene. That was hot. It was hot, but also ridiculous and too long.

Super long. I could have done without the length of it. It was probably three chapters. The concept for me. Kim, you love that shit. I could see you being done. I love that shit. I would love that.

I thought I was hot. I thought the sex was hot. Once we actually got to the experience, it was really hot. But the lead-up? Yeah. Oh, Lordy. Yeah. Another sex scene that I wanted to bring up was the birthday gang bang, which I thought was

really interesting. I didn't mind. Oh, I didn't mind that at all. So I didn't mind it. My 50 is coming up. I mean, just saying, guys. Finally, when the romance is starting to happen, finally, I give a shit. She's so transactional.

This is my 9 to 5. And finally, the gang bang, she was admitting her feelings. Finally. As they play musical chairs with her, with men, penises in her. Well, that's how the gangbang works, Kim. That's so weird. Men do bring their penises to a gangbbing. I personally have never gone to musical gangbang.

Musical dick. But I hear it's great for your 50s. It's an option. I would select it. No, musical dick. Is that what they called it? No. Lindsay's trademarking that right now. Oh, I like it.

Copyright. Boom. They combine two games. I'm calling it musical dicks. They went down on her. I thought this scene was hot. I like that she just wanted to be back in Gabe's arms. I just thought it was interesting that she was super happy to go along with it. But boy, do I miss Gabe.

It was like she's finally realizing that he's the one she wants. You know, she's at the ice cream store. And she's tried some other flavors. She got all those little peasant. pink spoons in her hand. She's got seven spoons where she's tried every flavor. And she's like, you know what? All I want is vanilla. That's what happened. Little nut. Yeah. So can we talk about how someone says how tight she is? I'm like, there's no way. She's been banged how many times throughout this story. And throughout her career. Right. To when she ended up with Gabe was four

years and she had had like two or three bosses who were banging her like on the daily. And having their staff and clients do it. Yeah, no. I'm not judging her. Like, she likes this. He did this for her. He didn't want this. This was for her birthday because she likes this.

And he wanted to make her now. I wanted her to be like, I just want you. And she was like, no, I'll take all the dick. Yeah. But I'm happy to be back with you. That was her turning point. Yeah. I'm glad you're the last dick.

Then he took her to a spa. He was incredible. I'm like, put ice on her cooch. Which I thought was really a very amazing detail that we got. And awkward in public. But whatever. What was it public? He rented out a whole spa.

Did you miss the part where it wasn't public? Did you think she was like spreading a lot of park bench? Like with the ice ice cream. That must not. I knew she was at the spa. I just did like there are other people at the spa taking care of that. He rented it out. There are people there taking care of them at the spa.

No, they left them. They're just sitting there at the spot. Everybody's got. Well, no, there was ice on her coat. And a charcutory board. That's what I'm asking. Somebody brought her ice. That's all I've said.

Listen, okay, she has ice in her cute. She's got a chakutery board and a glass of champagne. And she's having a good post-coital experience. Kim's not a fan of the word coital. I don't know if you remember from a previous episode. So she'd prefer you not use that word. I don't like that word. One of the main plot lines is that Gabe wants to build the only plotline.

Well, there's very few of them. Gabe wants to build a charitable foundation so they can give away their billions of dollars. And Athena gets the idea that they should give away all but $2 billion since they're worth $8 billion. So over the next 20 years, they will have a foundation dedicated to donating the remaining $6 billion. or pounds. This was in the UK. Pounds. Yeah, they're in Britain. They spend the weekend working on that project and ultimately admit they have feelings for each other. They decide they want to date each other. And Gabe offers Athena a job as head of the foundation.

He would like to quit paying her for sex and also give her a 90% pay cut. But she'll have a nice job title as head of the foundation. And she actually agrees to this pretty quickly. Probably because she'll be dating a billionaire anyway, so. Right. That's what I was thinking. She does have a pause. Like, well, you want to fuck me for free? And she's there's a moment.

And she's like, well, I'm kind of falling in love with you. And you're good and bad. And this is my life's dream. Sure. I got there. I was okay with it. I didn't think it was totally unrealistic. Yeah.

I tried. I mean. Gabe meets with his fam. Get to them on board. He announces his relationship and Athena's new role to the office and they plan to make the announcement at a big gala. Gabe has a custom gossamer gown made for Athena and again loved the fashion descriptions throughout the book. There was a lot of things that were over described, but I loved her experience having the gown made.

I was so fun. I liked this. This has got to harken to another book though, right? Oh, they all do. The designer of her dress is married to a rich guy who's got to be another book. I'm not sure what's that. You have to just get into the ecosystem of Allity Heart. So they get to the gala and she's in her fabulous dress and they make their way to their table. He's introducing her to everyone as his girlfriend. Sitting at the table, we have Gabe's family. Eleanor, if you'll remember, the wretched shrew that really never did anything that wrong. Tority's there.

As well as a man named Giles Harrington. So cue the villain music because this is pretty much the only conflict. He's a subcontractor of the brother who runs the construction business. He brings him as like a guest. Athena recognizes Giles from Serif. She interviewed with him for the professional job portion and decided then and there she would like to decline moving forward. And he's salty about it. He announced us to the whole table that Athena is a high-priced horror who has likely been making sure the good priest sees heaven every single day of the week.

completely scandalizes the whole table. The parents are like horrified. They're good Catholics. We didn't talk about this. But the parents have always been a little upset that he left the priesthood. They were never really happy with him with any of his decisions. And he's kind of been chasing their approval the whole time. That's true.

So Athena tells Giles that he's in breach of an NDA and he better have a good lawyer. And then she bolts. She just leaves. She handles this like a champ. She doesn't get crazy. I thought she handled this very well. I don't know how else you would have handled it. She had to leave, right?

Mm-hmm. Right. You know, I understood that part. But she iced gay about. And I guess, I mean, with no other conflict in the entire book, this was like a kind of a third act breakup. Yeah. This is when you start seeing her vulnerability and you start seeing who she is as a person. Yeah.

And you start seeing like, gosh, she is like an actual human and not a fucking robot. This is when I start liking her. And now you start feeling like, oh, she's. She's an actual human and she likes this guy, but she's vulnerable and insecure. And now you feel bad for her because she's sitting in a situation like this and it's awful. And I wish I would have liked her the whole time, but instead, only the last 30% of the book. Just because I don't like her doesn't mean you get to be mean to her. No, exactly.

Fuck you, douchebag Giles. Don't be rude, Giles. Misogynist asshole. Fuck off. I don't like that. She still didn't deserve that. Damn, Giles. What a dick.

Sick of it. So Athena assumes she's going to have to quit her job with Gabe and go back to being a hooker. But it turns out Seraph is pretty serious about their NDA. As they fucking should be. Well, yeah, that's a whole concept. So she's looking at a seven-figure settlement for the situation with Giles. $3 million just for him being a day. And that gives her time to figure out what do I want to do next.

Meanwhile, Gabe is tortured. He's in turmoil. He doesn't care if everyone knows how he met Athena. He just wants to be with her. But she wants space and she thinks he's better without her. We go through this whole third act breakup. I'm very fraught. Yeah.

I know. It's boring. It was a little. It was. It was so boring. And it could have been so much more angsty. And I just think it isn't. I think that's what we're missing.

Maybe we're getting jaded. I'm like, oh, okay, fine. Like, when do they get back together? Third act. Yeah, right here. He goes to dinner with like all the guys. I've never read one of these books, but I assume they're all the guys he goes to dinner with are Elity Hart Bachelors. They are.

Anton and Max. I read the Max book. Yes, these are all characters from the other books. It's very obvious. This is like a whole ecosystem. It's a little like side advertising where you put like a Coca-Cola in the movie and you're like. Yeah, it's not subtle in any way whatsoever. Oh, Hallmark.

And Folgers. Same thing. Or boozy bookasms. Like they are going to listen to that on Hallmark. Yeah. If they could just have their podcast like showing. I don't know about that. He gets convinced to fight for her.

He does. And he talks to his family and with a little Catholic gilting. He convinces them to let Athena stay on as the head of the foundation. Finally, he gets some balls and says, fuck you. I'm the CEO. Are you going to disown me? No. The brother and sister did back him up.

That was important. So he has his sibling support, which also lasted way too long. There was a whole top golf scene that was like so unnecessary. I think she has like a page limit. She has to meet. I don't know. And he is going to now go find his heroin. So he invites her to Alchemy, the sex club.

And she's like, you know what? This is just going to be my last goodbye. And she dresses all sexy and she walks in and he's in his priest's garments. First, he just hugs her. It's very intimate. And then he takes her to a sex room and there's a confessional in the sex room. And do they have sex in there? No.

No. He puts her in there. No, they confess. So that she can confess to him. This is called a bait and switch. We're going to take you a no sex room, but really you're going to do some church shit. And then he's like, just talk to me like I'm not me. I'm your priest.

And then she confesses that she loves him. And he says, excellent. You got your job back. The confessional thing was very weird. That's very. Well, they had to tie in the biblical stuff again. In a sex club? Like in how they got it in there, that was a whole conversation.

What man of God that was really a priest that is still godly? Dresses up like in no longer a priest, but puts on a priest costume at this point. No, they're in a scene, a non-sex scene. You guys said it earlier. Gave me the ick. It was fair. I think I get the point of what he was trying to do. but it's still read very icky.

She didn't pull it off. Is it supposed to be like a deeper level? Like, you can have both? I think it was like him trying to give her some peace. It was a therapy session and he knew from being a priest that if they had that partition between them and the confessional that she'd feel more comfortable talking. That was the idea. But anyway, finally, they make up.

All right. She takes the job. So we go to the epilogue. Kim's favorite. Kim loves a good epilogue. I hate epilogue. Just write it in. a fucking chapter, stop calling it an epilog. Nobody cares. She loves it when you have two epilogues,

like extra epilogs. Absolutely. Especially one from each perspective. Just write another fucking book. Wow. Just write a novella. Four years later, they are happily married with two kids. Actually, this part was kind of adorable. Athena used her settlement money to start a foundation for women-owned businesses. She wins a big award and they're going to celebrate it at this galley. she has to have some seams taken out in the original dress from the gala of shame. But now it's like a redemption moment. So it's very symbolic. She wears this dress.

And she brings her husband on stage and it's very sweet. And they're running this foundation, which they renamed from Rathmore. To Rathor. I'm just kidding. That would have been better. To audacity. She had all of the audacity to suggest that they give away billions of. of dollars. They do tie in

audacity. I actually love that part, like to talk about the community and how they were going to, like, serve the community. They were giving back. And she was the hard ass and he was the heart. That's why they made an unstoppable couple. Lindsay, you got your ATA? I did. As I should.

As I should. Let's talk ratings. Okay. Rating for the book, I was a three. I really struggled with this book. I wanted to love it. I liked scenes I didn't think I would and I hated scenes that were stupid. I felt like she drug out parts of the book that just were just so unnecessary to drag out. It was so much longer than it needed to be. It was like a slog at times. Yeah, it was a slug. And as much as I love a good, it shouldn't want it trope being a non-practicing Catholic. I really did struggle with some of them. You like a forbidden romance. Totally. You like a teacher's student. And I love a workplace. Romance. Romance. You love a forbidden romance. This wasn't forbidden because he paid her. It was just

disrespect. It was just a whore. She was just a whore, guys. Just felt very transactional and not a love story. So you're a three. I'm a three for the book. All right, Kim, what was your rating? Okay, I was at a three as well for very similar reasons. I really struggled with the sacrilegious stuff. I wanted to love it. I didn't. I literally felt gross after reading the altar part. I did love the role for playing too long, but I like the commitment to it. She made a lot of commitment to that. So I felt good about that. I think she was written a little too masculine and a little too disjointed for me. It was not my favorite book. I was a three. Like I said, I've read three L.D. Hearts and they're all very similar where the writing is really good. The dialogue is really

good. But it drags out a little bit. She spends multiple chapters on scenes that could have been condensed. Overall, it was a three. for me. Spice for you, Lynn? Spice for me was actually higher, like three and a half. I think it was hot. I think this book actually until 75% of the way through, which then there was like very little sex. It was just sex. It was a lot of stories stringing together sex scenes. Totally. So like the sex was good if you could divorce it from the plot or lack thereof. So yeah, I'm a three and a half. I gave it a two. The gang bang thing was not for me. And sometimes it is. Sometimes I really like it and it's really hot. This was not it for. me. I felt like she was already hoaring herself out. We didn't need more spotlight on that. But that was her thing. It was her thing. But we have kind of a relationship thing going and it's great. But I'm still a horror and I appreciate the fact that you know that. So happy birthday to me.

You kind of want her to be like, this isn't one I want. I just want to be with you. Yeah. I wanted that too. I want her to go, can I just have an iPad? Just be done with the scene. And that's not what she did. She was like, yeah, I'm down for it. Let's go. I think. I think. think the best part of that scene was when she was so happy to be back with him. Yeah. But he did that because he thought she wanted it. He didn't want to do that. No. He knew that she liked that stuff and he felt like he was too vanilla for her. Yeah. And he wanted to give her an adventure. And so he almost made a sacrifice because it was like he didn't want to see her with other guys. But he did it because he thought she wanted that. But I'm with you, Lindsay. I would have loved her to say, you know what? Thank you for

doing this, but I just want you. That would have been fucking amazing. That would have been perfect. But she didn't. She was like, I'm in. She's still here for the D. I guarantee she'd do it again. She likes hot, kinky sex. Kim's like that whore. I'm not judging, but I am. She's totally judging. Totally judging. She likes to have sex. She likes to be desired. She likes to be dehumanized. And we never find out why. Yeah. And that was part of of the problem. And maybe you don't need to know, but like, I need to know. If I'm reading the book. Right. All right. Well, mine did too. I actually gave the spice of four just because there was so

much of it. We got scene after scene after scene. And most of them, I'd say with the exception of two scenes, were extremely hot. There were two scenes that I felt like I needed 12 Hail Mary's and I'm going to go to church now. Amen. If you're in it for the spice, this was a very spicy book. So I gave the spice of four. This was a different journey. We've never done a priest book before. There's a few out there. Can we not do another one?

No more priest's. I don't think we will. I think as a group we are agreeing. This is not our genre. Not our genre. It's okay. I'm glad I did it so that I know that it's not for me. I concur.

I concur also. So thank you everyone for joining us. Be sure to find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Check out Boozy, Bookgasms. for reading list, cocktail recipes and episodes of the show. And until we see you next time, happy reading. Happy reading. Bye.

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