Review: Faking Perfection by Mia Watts

Father Garth Roderick is a priest with a problem. He’s had a fascination with a particular congregant for years. Though he’s never actually acknowledged his sexuality, Garth’s definitely more attracted to men than women. Fortunately, he hasn’t had to deal with making a moral decision... until the night he is caught in the dark and kissed senseless. Now he fantasizes that the kiss was from the one man he can’t forget, Eli Jennings.

For Garth, the man of his fantasies could be his, but how does he reconcile human desire with his vow to God? And for Eli, coming in second best hurts like hell, but how do you ask a man of God to leave the church and take a chance on love?

I rarely do this but... HOLY SHIZNOLIS WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT COVER?!?!?

The lure of the cover was too much to resist.

The words inside that cover... let's look at that cover again. No, seriously, it wasn't horrid. Some reality suspension is required, but the struggle Garth goes through felt genuine, for the most part.

Garth has known Eli since he was a child. Kinda squicky, I know. Watts tows a fine line between ewwwwwww and awwwwwww. When the attraction began is nebulous, so I chose not to dwell too heavily on it. Suffice to say, Garth's been carrying a torch for Eli. He even had an encounter with a kissing bandit/secret admirer three years ago that he's fantasized was Eli.

Guess what?

It totally was! 

Eli's been in love with Garth for years and decides to make his intentions known at his sister's wedding. Some flip fucking went down in the vestibule. Did I think it was weird that a virgin priest was down to flip fuck with a parishioner in the vestibule? Uh, yeah. Not half as weird as his fellow priest walking in on their post-coital bliss then REFUSING TO LEAVE!

For a minute I thought the other priest was going to join in instead he started to give Garth and Eli the hell fire and brimstone business.

So weird.

The angst and Catholicism politics that ensue read authentic where the disconnect occurred was between the two MCs. There wasn't enough on the page to make me believe in their love; they're not together all that often and when they are they're having sex in semi-public places. It should've been hot; I wanted heat between them and what I got was mostly awkward. My other problem was the continuity errors, some of which were glaring and yanked me right out of the story. 

Another problem is I continue to have questions. Why wait three years? It's sort of intimated that Eli lives out of town which has prevented their contact, but he's at the church regularly over the next few weeks? Who takes a few weeks off for their sister's wedding?

Not a bad read, but not memorable one either.

A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

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