Review: Smashes the trope "sex and faith shall not co-exist in a romance novel"
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 2, 2014
It's tough to assign a rating to this novel:  I love the premise (characters who are spiritual AND have sex??!), but the execution is a wee bit uneven.  This is a friends-to-lovers story, as well as a marriage of convenience tale:  Daniel is a widower and pastor who will be more readily hired by a church if he's married; Jessica is one of his best friends from high school.At times, the writing is unbearably poignant.  Jessica realizes that she is "absolutely terrible at being attractive," and while wrapping gifts alone, she forces herself to sing "as loud as she could to fool herself into being happy."  At other moments, there's a bit too much telling, when showing the characters in dialogue or action would have served the story better (and some of the dialogue is a bit stilted).But this may be quibbling.  This is a memorable book for its willingness to take risks and work against the forbidden rule of modern romance writing:  sex and faith must never mingle (and so I gave this 4-star book a 5-star rating for that effort).  Noelle Adams mixes the two in a way that is both nuanced and toe-curling.