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Lessons in Sin
As Father Magnus Falke, I suppress my cravings. As the headteacher of a Catholic boarding school, I’m never tempted by a student. Until her...
I became a priest to control my impulses.
Then I meet Tinsley Constantine.
The bratty princess challenges my rules and awakens my dark nature. With each punishment I lash upon her, I want more. In my classroom, private rectory, and bent over my altar, I want all of her. There’s no absolution for the things I’ve done.
One touch risks everything I stand for. My faith. My redemption. And even my life.
As if that could stop me. I need her pain, and her heart, and she needs my lessons in sin.
I became a priest to control my impulses.
Then I meet Tinsley Constantine.
The bratty princess challenges my rules and awakens my dark nature. With each punishment I lash upon her, I want more. In my classroom, private rectory, and bent over my altar, I want all of her. There’s no absolution for the things I’ve done.
One touch risks everything I stand for. My faith. My redemption. And even my life.
As if that could stop me. I need her pain, and her heart, and she needs my lessons in sin.
448 pages, ebook
First published June 29, 2021
2,203 people are currently reading
31.1k people want to read
About the author
Pam Godwin
43books11.3kfollowersNew York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author, Pam Godwin, lives in the Midwest with her husband, cats, retired greyhounds, and an old, foul-mouthed parrot. She traveled the world for seven years, attended three universities, married the vocalist of her favorite rock band, and retired from her quantitative analyst career in 2014 to write full-time.
Her interests veer toward the unconventional: bourbon, full-body tattoos, and tragic villains. Equally peculiar are her aversions to sleeping, eating meat, and dolls with blinking eyes.
SIGNED BOOKS and MERCH:
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Her interests veer toward the unconventional: bourbon, full-body tattoos, and tragic villains. Equally peculiar are her aversions to sleeping, eating meat, and dolls with blinking eyes.
SIGNED BOOKS and MERCH:
INSTAGRAM:
TIKTOK:
FACEBOOK:
AMAZON:
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,306 reviews
June 29, 2021
𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊: LESSONS IN SIN.
𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄: CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE.
𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄: STANDALONE.
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑: PAM GODWIN.
𝐏𝐎𝐕: FIRST-PERSON: DUAL PERSPECTIVE.
𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆: ⭐⭐⭐⭐�
𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒: TABOO.
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓:🤠🤠🤠🤠
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆:🌏🌏🌏🌏
𝐄𝐘𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑:🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄:
I think Pam Godwin should copyright the teacher-student Romance coz she knows how to kill it... and to add a Priest in this Chaos...my God!!! This is just the recipe for disaster wrapping in thick blanket of sexual tension and oh so much hotness...
Forgive me Father for I have sinned....🤤😏🔥
Another amazing addition in the midnight dynasty world staring Tinsley Constantine and Father Magnus Falke...(don't let his Saint title fool you...🤭😏)
Their love story was unconventional but inevitable...the sexual tension between was palpable from the first scene they met...and I really enjoyed Tinsley playing with Magnus's restraints. Love how their characters was created so as to deviate from the Taboo aspect of the story to the intense, slow burn Romance.
If you love a Forbidden 🚫, age gap Romance then this is a must read...leave everything and get this book... its not an understatement when I say it will burn your kindle in ashes!!!
June 21, 2021
5 STARS
Age gap. Forbidden romance. Student/Teacher. Dirty Priest. I am in book heaven right now floating on endorphins so high, I don't know if there's moving on from this story.
Pam Godwin never ceases to amaze me with her talent of creating raw, riveting, and broken characters that I simply cannot get enough of. And a priest with a tortured past, seeking salvation of the collar within the walls of a school for the rich and broken...well it just doesn't get much more delicious than that. Father Magnus was pure, sizzling energy. The second the man appears on the page, it crackles with electricity. I can't even describe it to you, but this was one of the most enigmatic characters I've read from Pam. And having read her entire backlist, that's saying something.
Now while there's no doubt Pam can write the hell out of an alpha hero, what I've come to love most about her stories are her heroines. These are tough as nails women who are no simpering ingenues. And it's not small feat to write an 18 year old virgin heroine but make her an old soul in an entirely believable way. Tinsley Constantine is the youngest daughter in the extravagantly rich Constantine family. She's also the f*ck up. Turning her nose at tradition, she yearns for freedom to discover herself, but one act out too many lands her in the strict Catholic boarding school. What first starts as bratty behavior to get herself expelled, soon turns into something more when she lands in the crosshairs of Magnus.
This is a slow burn. A deliciously painful slow burn full of chemistry and sexual tension. I fell instantly for Tinsley's character. She's wild, willful, but also incredibly smart and caring. She has no problem standing her ground and challenges Magnus as every turn. I also loved her loving nature.
The romance here is GAH. It was EVERYTHING. When I tell you that I devoured this from cover to cover in one sitting, I mean I couldn't set it down for even a second. I though Pam created my favorite student teacher romance in , but man, this book owned me. I don't know anyone else who can pull off a 20 year age gap with an 18 year old heroine like this.
Lessons in Sin was deliciously taboo, darkly erotic, sinful, and oh so addictive! This may be my favorite Godwin book to date.
ARC courtesy of author in exchange for an honest review
Find me on:
Iron sheathed in suede, that voice belonged to a man who bent for no one. His sculpted lips lured victims to the altar with the promise of heavenly salvation before condemning them to eternal hell.
Age gap. Forbidden romance. Student/Teacher. Dirty Priest. I am in book heaven right now floating on endorphins so high, I don't know if there's moving on from this story.
Pam Godwin never ceases to amaze me with her talent of creating raw, riveting, and broken characters that I simply cannot get enough of. And a priest with a tortured past, seeking salvation of the collar within the walls of a school for the rich and broken...well it just doesn't get much more delicious than that. Father Magnus was pure, sizzling energy. The second the man appears on the page, it crackles with electricity. I can't even describe it to you, but this was one of the most enigmatic characters I've read from Pam. And having read her entire backlist, that's saying something.
Now while there's no doubt Pam can write the hell out of an alpha hero, what I've come to love most about her stories are her heroines. These are tough as nails women who are no simpering ingenues. And it's not small feat to write an 18 year old virgin heroine but make her an old soul in an entirely believable way. Tinsley Constantine is the youngest daughter in the extravagantly rich Constantine family. She's also the f*ck up. Turning her nose at tradition, she yearns for freedom to discover herself, but one act out too many lands her in the strict Catholic boarding school. What first starts as bratty behavior to get herself expelled, soon turns into something more when she lands in the crosshairs of Magnus.
This is a slow burn. A deliciously painful slow burn full of chemistry and sexual tension. I fell instantly for Tinsley's character. She's wild, willful, but also incredibly smart and caring. She has no problem standing her ground and challenges Magnus as every turn. I also loved her loving nature.
The romance here is GAH. It was EVERYTHING. When I tell you that I devoured this from cover to cover in one sitting, I mean I couldn't set it down for even a second. I though Pam created my favorite student teacher romance in , but man, this book owned me. I don't know anyone else who can pull off a 20 year age gap with an 18 year old heroine like this.
Lessons in Sin was deliciously taboo, darkly erotic, sinful, and oh so addictive! This may be my favorite Godwin book to date.
ARC courtesy of author in exchange for an honest review
Find me on:
Shelved as 'wrote'
July 15, 2024Student-Teacher / Priest (standalone)
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"LESSONS IN SIN is problematic, inappropriate, and blasphemously delicious. Pam Godwin writes unapologetically and from a place of primal desire. Enter all sinners." - CJ Roberts, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Captive in the Dark
✔️ Student-teacher romance
✔️ Sexy priest romance
✔️ Age gap
✔️ Explosive sexual chemistry
✔️ F-O-R-B-I-D-D-E-N standalone
Amazon:
B&N:
Apple:
Kobo:
Google:
Audible:
Signed Paperback:
"LESSONS IN SIN is problematic, inappropriate, and blasphemously delicious. Pam Godwin writes unapologetically and from a place of primal desire. Enter all sinners." - CJ Roberts, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Captive in the Dark
✔️ Student-teacher romance
✔️ Sexy priest romance
✔️ Age gap
✔️ Explosive sexual chemistry
✔️ F-O-R-B-I-D-D-E-N standalone
June 19, 2021
4 Stars
Pam Godwin is one of my auto-buy authors and I will read anything she writes. Period.
That said, I was surprised when I read the blurb for this as both the naughty priest and student/teacher tropes have been done to death. But trust Goddess Godwin to take something tired and make it feel fresh and different.
I LOVED Magnus. He was an total alphahole and I am always here for that. I also really liked Tinsley. She wasn't your typical student/teacher romance chick and I really enjoyed her.
In short, this was a deliciously sexy read and I can see myself re-reading it in the future for sure.
Pam Godwin is one of my auto-buy authors and I will read anything she writes. Period.
That said, I was surprised when I read the blurb for this as both the naughty priest and student/teacher tropes have been done to death. But trust Goddess Godwin to take something tired and make it feel fresh and different.
I LOVED Magnus. He was an total alphahole and I am always here for that. I also really liked Tinsley. She wasn't your typical student/teacher romance chick and I really enjoyed her.
In short, this was a deliciously sexy read and I can see myself re-reading it in the future for sure.
August 9, 2021
(I don't know the person who gave this 3.5 stars. It was not me)
But back to the important things I need to get off my chest first.
To Father Magnus:
¡¡LET THE GIRL PEE IN PEACE!!
Thank you.
(at least he made sure she didn't piss herself right in the panties, we can appreciate the thoughtfulness😍).
Pros
+ if someone tells you this book is not hilariously funny, don't believe them. Their sense of humour is too good to be true. The unprecedented number of brain farts from Tinsley's mouth made me do a double take at the girl.
“You want to save it?� He pulled up short, his brows a heavy mantle of suspicion.
“Why wouldn’t I?�
“Bats carry rabies. Did you touch it?�
“Not all bats, and no. No touching. No biting. No heavy petting. We don’t have that kind of relationship. It just needs some mosquitoes in its belly and a little more practice flying…�
Tinsley's sense of humour revolved around one topic and one topic only, so I guess we have something in common, huh? 😏
“They call it Morning Worship.� I stared at the wall before me, basking in his discomfort. “To think, when the lights go out, all those dutiful prayer hands are petting the kitty in your honor.�
Let me tell you that the author was fluctuating like the tiny boat on the rough sea whether to feature her heroine as the Virgin Mary or the Whore of Babylon. 💀 The moral dilemma was real...
+ The Father Magnus had been celibate for 9 years and had a thing for older (!) women. The fact that he never looked at other girls the way he looked at Tinsley (like a hungry dog at a bone) gave me the feeling she was special to him. 😑😑
�BIG FAT NO �
🧶-
I would love to say I never read a book with a slutty virgin as a heroine but I did. Just did.
😂😭😭
The dumb bitch couldn't even lose her virginity without her bodyguard creeping on her and raining on her parade. 😭😭 Her bodyguard was also very particular about his sudden emergence: he didn't prevent her from handing in blow jobs left and right.
Virginal, slutty, dumb heroine. What an explosive combo.
The first time she sees her "favourite priest", she stops her attempts to hand in her precious gift 💀🗿to every male she deems more or less relevant (the availability of a dick being the strongest point in favour lmaoo).
One measly blow job, and it all came crashing down.
My social calendar, my high school, my designer clothes� Even my silk pillowcases were taken away, my entire world downgraded in the blink of an eye.
Putting first world problems aside, I cannot help mentioning that the author did her best to "redeem" the girl in our (or better said, priest's) eyes and portray her as this "deep, lonely, smarter-than-thou" kind of girl with a very horny brain that entertained us with indecent jokes throughout the book and had more to her than the spoiled brattiness she demonstrated initially.
However, the characteristics were way too cliché and lacked the subtlety that would give Tinsley depth as the character. Her being compassionate to the animals and the hero being there to see it and ADMIRE this about her??
The whole thing (the emphasis on the love of animals) looked superficial, like a parlor trick that was supposed to bring them together and bond over something that is very common ?
🧶- At some point the cringey talk about right and wrong "holes", 💀 and a fetish for pee and blood on the sheets 😂✋stepped up their game and I was halfway to the lady's room to talk on the big white phone. But I won't lie, the cringey sex scenes neither enfuriated nor embarrassed me.
I would opt for calling those precious moments "laugh for all the wrong reasons".
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.� His body edged closer to my back, his breath lashing at my neck as he spoke in a deep, scalding voice. “I’m not interested in anything beneath your skirt.� 😂😭😂😭
Sure sure, we all here are dumb af 🤡🤡🤡
✋If it's the priest who wants you take off your underwear, it's always for the holier-than-thou reasons. Take notes, girls. �
🧶- Father Magnus. FATHER MAGNUS. He had his moments which were ALMOST disgusting enough to make me love him... Thus the heart-ache I experience confessing that he was not repulsive to my heart's content. 😔
I expected indifference, but what I saw in his expression was worse.
His eyes glinted with triumph.
As far as MY expectations are concerned, I expected triumph from him over something more vicious than taking away the schoolgirl's phone. 💅🏻
🧶- Yet again I have to agree with people who said that neither Magnus nor the Catholic school itself gave off priest Catholic vibes. Which is kind of logical and not surprising, in my opinion, since the guy had been a billionaire for the larger part of his life.
The thing is that this unlucky occasion took away from the forbidden aspect to this story. Deep (or not so deep) in his heart he stayed exactly the way he used to be before he took his vows - typical for romance genre self-indulgent asshole of a billionaire - so once he broke his vows, it felt more like homecoming rather than the religious man's downfall and succumbing to sinful temptation.
🧶- Despite an effort the author took, the main characters' connection felt purely sexual. Magnus' fascination with her mind and personality didn't sound believable because the scenes that invoked it felt very much like artificial fillers.
I guess I'm done with spreading negativity for today.
But back to the important things I need to get off my chest first.
To Father Magnus:
¡¡LET THE GIRL PEE IN PEACE!!
Thank you.
(at least he made sure she didn't piss herself right in the panties, we can appreciate the thoughtfulness😍).
Pros
+ if someone tells you this book is not hilariously funny, don't believe them. Their sense of humour is too good to be true. The unprecedented number of brain farts from Tinsley's mouth made me do a double take at the girl.
“You want to save it?� He pulled up short, his brows a heavy mantle of suspicion.
“Why wouldn’t I?�
“Bats carry rabies. Did you touch it?�
“Not all bats, and no. No touching. No biting. No heavy petting. We don’t have that kind of relationship. It just needs some mosquitoes in its belly and a little more practice flying…�
Tinsley's sense of humour revolved around one topic and one topic only, so I guess we have something in common, huh? 😏
“They call it Morning Worship.� I stared at the wall before me, basking in his discomfort. “To think, when the lights go out, all those dutiful prayer hands are petting the kitty in your honor.�
Let me tell you that the author was fluctuating like the tiny boat on the rough sea whether to feature her heroine as the Virgin Mary or the Whore of Babylon. 💀 The moral dilemma was real...
+ The Father Magnus had been celibate for 9 years and had a thing for older (!) women. The fact that he never looked at other girls the way he looked at Tinsley (like a hungry dog at a bone) gave me the feeling she was special to him. 😑😑
�BIG FAT NO �
🧶-
I would love to say I never read a book with a slutty virgin as a heroine but I did. Just did.
😂😭😭
The dumb bitch couldn't even lose her virginity without her bodyguard creeping on her and raining on her parade. 😭😭 Her bodyguard was also very particular about his sudden emergence: he didn't prevent her from handing in blow jobs left and right.
Virginal, slutty, dumb heroine. What an explosive combo.
The first time she sees her "favourite priest", she stops her attempts to hand in her precious gift 💀🗿to every male she deems more or less relevant (the availability of a dick being the strongest point in favour lmaoo).
One measly blow job, and it all came crashing down.
My social calendar, my high school, my designer clothes� Even my silk pillowcases were taken away, my entire world downgraded in the blink of an eye.
Putting first world problems aside, I cannot help mentioning that the author did her best to "redeem" the girl in our (or better said, priest's) eyes and portray her as this "deep, lonely, smarter-than-thou" kind of girl with a very horny brain that entertained us with indecent jokes throughout the book and had more to her than the spoiled brattiness she demonstrated initially.
However, the characteristics were way too cliché and lacked the subtlety that would give Tinsley depth as the character. Her being compassionate to the animals and the hero being there to see it and ADMIRE this about her??
The whole thing (the emphasis on the love of animals) looked superficial, like a parlor trick that was supposed to bring them together and bond over something that is very common ?
🧶- At some point the cringey talk about right and wrong "holes", 💀 and a fetish for pee and blood on the sheets 😂✋stepped up their game and I was halfway to the lady's room to talk on the big white phone. But I won't lie, the cringey sex scenes neither enfuriated nor embarrassed me.
I would opt for calling those precious moments "laugh for all the wrong reasons".
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.� His body edged closer to my back, his breath lashing at my neck as he spoke in a deep, scalding voice. “I’m not interested in anything beneath your skirt.� 😂😭😂😭
Sure sure, we all here are dumb af 🤡🤡🤡
✋If it's the priest who wants you take off your underwear, it's always for the holier-than-thou reasons. Take notes, girls. �
🧶- Father Magnus. FATHER MAGNUS. He had his moments which were ALMOST disgusting enough to make me love him... Thus the heart-ache I experience confessing that he was not repulsive to my heart's content. 😔
I expected indifference, but what I saw in his expression was worse.
His eyes glinted with triumph.
As far as MY expectations are concerned, I expected triumph from him over something more vicious than taking away the schoolgirl's phone. 💅🏻
🧶- Yet again I have to agree with people who said that neither Magnus nor the Catholic school itself gave off priest Catholic vibes. Which is kind of logical and not surprising, in my opinion, since the guy had been a billionaire for the larger part of his life.
The thing is that this unlucky occasion took away from the forbidden aspect to this story. Deep (or not so deep) in his heart he stayed exactly the way he used to be before he took his vows - typical for romance genre self-indulgent asshole of a billionaire - so once he broke his vows, it felt more like homecoming rather than the religious man's downfall and succumbing to sinful temptation.
🧶- Despite an effort the author took, the main characters' connection felt purely sexual. Magnus' fascination with her mind and personality didn't sound believable because the scenes that invoked it felt very much like artificial fillers.
I guess I'm done with spreading negativity for today.
June 23, 2021
Forgive me Father for I have sinned. *hangs head* I have not read every word Pam Godwin has ever written
LISTEN! This woman! This story! It was a magnificent, sinful, kinky, delicious, captivating, raw, emotional, slow-burn journey I did not see coming and I could not get enough!
I am a reading junkie for anything age-gap; throw into the mix student/teacher, a Priest who’s also a Headmaster and make it all kinds of respectfully sinful and I will part the seas to get my hands on the book.
Tinsley Constantine and Father Magnus sparked and sizzled from page one. Their story was electric. I’m not gonna lie and tell you I wasn’t turned on for most of this book, but more than that, I was intensely riveted. Magnus had an aura to him that is indescribable. There wasn’t one thing that set him apart, it was all the things. He was formidable. He took charge. He was passionate in all things. His depth was immeasurable and the conflict within him was torturous. Tinsley was equally magnificent, if not more so. She stole the show for me, and by show, I mean my heart and soul. She was an 18-year-old virgin like no other I can think of. She possessed more maturity in one finger than those twice her age. I believed in her. I rooted for her. I want to turn back time and be her.
It was a pleasure to be a part of this world for the hours I was in it. My advice to future readers who may or may not *like* some of the different themes this story has because of past reading experiences, try one more time. Try with this story. It’s a journey you won’t see coming and it is magnificent.
Grab Your Copy Today!
Amazon US:
Amazon UK:
Amazon CA:
Amazon AU:
Universal:
B&N:
Kobo:
Apple Books:
Google Play:
LISTEN! This woman! This story! It was a magnificent, sinful, kinky, delicious, captivating, raw, emotional, slow-burn journey I did not see coming and I could not get enough!
I am a reading junkie for anything age-gap; throw into the mix student/teacher, a Priest who’s also a Headmaster and make it all kinds of respectfully sinful and I will part the seas to get my hands on the book.
Tinsley Constantine and Father Magnus sparked and sizzled from page one. Their story was electric. I’m not gonna lie and tell you I wasn’t turned on for most of this book, but more than that, I was intensely riveted. Magnus had an aura to him that is indescribable. There wasn’t one thing that set him apart, it was all the things. He was formidable. He took charge. He was passionate in all things. His depth was immeasurable and the conflict within him was torturous. Tinsley was equally magnificent, if not more so. She stole the show for me, and by show, I mean my heart and soul. She was an 18-year-old virgin like no other I can think of. She possessed more maturity in one finger than those twice her age. I believed in her. I rooted for her. I want to turn back time and be her.
It was a pleasure to be a part of this world for the hours I was in it. My advice to future readers who may or may not *like* some of the different themes this story has because of past reading experiences, try one more time. Try with this story. It’s a journey you won’t see coming and it is magnificent.
Grab Your Copy Today!
Amazon US:
Amazon UK:
Amazon CA:
Amazon AU:
Universal:
B&N:
Kobo:
Apple Books:
Google Play:
June 19, 2021
Well now this was just perfection wasn’t it ? It wasn’t nearly as dark as pams usual stuff but it was certainly forbidden.
Tinsley (18) is the youngest daughter to an empire - she’s ridiculously rich- but after being caught giving a bj to a college guy her mother sends her to a private catholic boarding school as punishment. She wants her to fit the image she’s set for her, and plans to marry her off for the betterment of their empire and not love. All tinsley wants is the exact opposite of that, she wants the freedom to choose her own path.
Magnus (40) is the priest and head teacher/owner of this school. He hasn’t always been a priest, he used to be a self made billionaire and most eligible bachelor of New York but after his “unsavory� wants in the bedroom led him to a traumatic moment he left his life and became a priest. It’s been 9 years of his penance- becoming a priest to help him with his “sickness� (honestly i think the only trigger warning for this book would be his religious sexual trauma).
This was so good. The tension was SLOW BURN and just absolutely delicious. Tinsley is set on getting herself expelled to get back at her mother but she’s insanely intelligent and cunning. Her constant rebellion and punishments leads tinsley and magnus to get closer, and they realize they’re attracted to each other. They stop themselves for a long time, never crossing the final line in attempts to not fuck up Magnus� life but their chemistry is insane and being together was inevitable. Magnus was hot and enamored with tinsley. He was dominating and loving. The smut was great but their relationship was also fantastic. They are truly soul mates, I loved their journey and what they went through to be together. Undying love. It was so good ugh pls read this it comes out June 29th (i got an arc from Valentine PR- THANK YOU)
Tinsley (18) is the youngest daughter to an empire - she’s ridiculously rich- but after being caught giving a bj to a college guy her mother sends her to a private catholic boarding school as punishment. She wants her to fit the image she’s set for her, and plans to marry her off for the betterment of their empire and not love. All tinsley wants is the exact opposite of that, she wants the freedom to choose her own path.
Magnus (40) is the priest and head teacher/owner of this school. He hasn’t always been a priest, he used to be a self made billionaire and most eligible bachelor of New York but after his “unsavory� wants in the bedroom led him to a traumatic moment he left his life and became a priest. It’s been 9 years of his penance- becoming a priest to help him with his “sickness� (honestly i think the only trigger warning for this book would be his religious sexual trauma).
This was so good. The tension was SLOW BURN and just absolutely delicious. Tinsley is set on getting herself expelled to get back at her mother but she’s insanely intelligent and cunning. Her constant rebellion and punishments leads tinsley and magnus to get closer, and they realize they’re attracted to each other. They stop themselves for a long time, never crossing the final line in attempts to not fuck up Magnus� life but their chemistry is insane and being together was inevitable. Magnus was hot and enamored with tinsley. He was dominating and loving. The smut was great but their relationship was also fantastic. They are truly soul mates, I loved their journey and what they went through to be together. Undying love. It was so good ugh pls read this it comes out June 29th (i got an arc from Valentine PR- THANK YOU)
January 30, 2023
such a promising start but from the 50% mark on i was genuinely gobsmacked by some of the shit that happened. but i guess good for tinsley falling for a former billionaire priest?
June 29, 2021
Sweet baby’s Jesus and all that is Holy, I feel like I need to atone for my sins of the many impure thoughts I had from reading this book. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
The Constantine world has returned with the wicked witch of a mother named Caroline, who sends her daughter Tinsley to an all-girl Catholic boarding school to avoid scandal, get Tinsley in line, and has Tinsley's future mapped out for her; Father Magnus Falke is head of Sion Academy of the Sacred Heart, he is Stern and strict and doesn’t tolerate anything until Tinsley, who verbally spars and challenges him at every turn.
Tinsley has other plans and plans on getting expelled. She is fierce, brilliant, whimsical, and comes up with the best comebacks. Magnus is like no other Priest; he comes across as a tyrant, yet he is protective and caring. Let’s not forget handsome and built like a Greek God that all the school girls worship.
This book is pure spice and heat; my kindle was on fire. Let's add taboo, kinky as hell, age gap(she is 18, he is 40), and a phenomenal author, and it's a masterpiece. I was captived by the very first sentence and just knew right then and there I would love this book. Pam Godwin always goes into such great detail about every aspect of the book. And never leaves holes or gaps. Going in, I had high expectations, and she killed it. Lessons in Sin is a one-click book.
The Constantine world has returned with the wicked witch of a mother named Caroline, who sends her daughter Tinsley to an all-girl Catholic boarding school to avoid scandal, get Tinsley in line, and has Tinsley's future mapped out for her; Father Magnus Falke is head of Sion Academy of the Sacred Heart, he is Stern and strict and doesn’t tolerate anything until Tinsley, who verbally spars and challenges him at every turn.
Tinsley has other plans and plans on getting expelled. She is fierce, brilliant, whimsical, and comes up with the best comebacks. Magnus is like no other Priest; he comes across as a tyrant, yet he is protective and caring. Let’s not forget handsome and built like a Greek God that all the school girls worship.
This book is pure spice and heat; my kindle was on fire. Let's add taboo, kinky as hell, age gap(she is 18, he is 40), and a phenomenal author, and it's a masterpiece. I was captived by the very first sentence and just knew right then and there I would love this book. Pam Godwin always goes into such great detail about every aspect of the book. And never leaves holes or gaps. Going in, I had high expectations, and she killed it. Lessons in Sin is a one-click book.
June 14, 2021
“But with you?� He spoke against my throat. Lips like warm velvet. Voice like cold steel. “I am viciously, reprehensibly possessive of you.�
Y'all, I loved this book👀 like I think it is officially my favorite Pam Godwin book now, which is saying A LOT. It was funny, sweet, sexy, entertaining and SO forbidden. There are plenty of reasons why the couple being together is considered taboo and forbidden and I was LIVING for it. This was giving me vibes similar to Medicine Man and Dark Notes, so if anyone loves those books like I do, I'm sure you'll love this one just as much too.
"You’re my greatest, most painful punishment, Tinsley Constantine.�
From the start, the tension and the anticipation was killing me, especially with how domineering the hero was, and I couldn't wait to see how the dynamics would play out. The pacing of the book and the build-up was spot on. It wasn't too angsty and it was also a bit more realistic that their relationship didn't move too fast with all the forbidden-ness between them, which I was glad for, but at the same time, it never felt like it was dragging and thankfully, it didn't have the annoying push and pull that sometimes lasts throughout the whole book like many taboo books have. Instead, it had just the right amount, with plenty of steam still so we aren't left waiting long either.
The heroine was also definitely a favorite of mine too. She was witty, funny, caring, smart, sweet, but also strong with a backbone, who loves to talk and take care of animals. At times she was a bit childish, but instead of it annoying me, I was actually living for it because of the hero's reactions and annoyance with it instead😂. And on top of that, we have the hero who was legit fire🔥
“I’m your guardian. I’ll stay with you. I’ll keep you. I’ll fucking roar for you. If anyone fucks with you, I’ll be their nightmare. I’ll burn down the goddamn world for you. 😍
I can't say too much about him because I want everybody to fully experience him when they read the book themselves, but I will just say, he's dirty, possessive AF, demanding, and obsessive, but can also be super sweet when it comes to the heroine. Total book husband material🙌
I could’ve made a dozen different choices that didn’t fuse her fate with mine. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. This was happening. Not because I’d planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn’t been called to be a priest. I’d been called to be hers.
Now, if I had to be picky and choose something that did bother me just a tiny bit, it would be that I wish we had more closure on a few particular side characters, one specifically who liked to snitch a bit, but she kind of just disappeared as the book went on, never to be mentioned again and I'm just like 👀. Also, I would have liked the ending or the resolution to have been a little more drawn out, or expanded on a bit more. It just all came together maybe a little too nicely?
But besides that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book overall and cannot wait for everyone else to have it in their hands. And now that I know that it's connected to some other books in a Universe, I'm off to read them because I'm officially obsessed with the Constantines 😍
(Feel free to ask for safety details and I'll shoot a dm! 🙂)
*ARC Provided In Exchange For A Honest Review*
Y'all, I loved this book👀 like I think it is officially my favorite Pam Godwin book now, which is saying A LOT. It was funny, sweet, sexy, entertaining and SO forbidden. There are plenty of reasons why the couple being together is considered taboo and forbidden and I was LIVING for it. This was giving me vibes similar to Medicine Man and Dark Notes, so if anyone loves those books like I do, I'm sure you'll love this one just as much too.
"You’re my greatest, most painful punishment, Tinsley Constantine.�
From the start, the tension and the anticipation was killing me, especially with how domineering the hero was, and I couldn't wait to see how the dynamics would play out. The pacing of the book and the build-up was spot on. It wasn't too angsty and it was also a bit more realistic that their relationship didn't move too fast with all the forbidden-ness between them, which I was glad for, but at the same time, it never felt like it was dragging and thankfully, it didn't have the annoying push and pull that sometimes lasts throughout the whole book like many taboo books have. Instead, it had just the right amount, with plenty of steam still so we aren't left waiting long either.
The heroine was also definitely a favorite of mine too. She was witty, funny, caring, smart, sweet, but also strong with a backbone, who loves to talk and take care of animals. At times she was a bit childish, but instead of it annoying me, I was actually living for it because of the hero's reactions and annoyance with it instead😂. And on top of that, we have the hero who was legit fire🔥
“I’m your guardian. I’ll stay with you. I’ll keep you. I’ll fucking roar for you. If anyone fucks with you, I’ll be their nightmare. I’ll burn down the goddamn world for you. 😍
I can't say too much about him because I want everybody to fully experience him when they read the book themselves, but I will just say, he's dirty, possessive AF, demanding, and obsessive, but can also be super sweet when it comes to the heroine. Total book husband material🙌
I could’ve made a dozen different choices that didn’t fuse her fate with mine. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. This was happening. Not because I’d planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn’t been called to be a priest. I’d been called to be hers.
Now, if I had to be picky and choose something that did bother me just a tiny bit, it would be that I wish we had more closure on a few particular side characters, one specifically who liked to snitch a bit, but she kind of just disappeared as the book went on, never to be mentioned again and I'm just like 👀. Also, I would have liked the ending or the resolution to have been a little more drawn out, or expanded on a bit more. It just all came together maybe a little too nicely?
But besides that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book overall and cannot wait for everyone else to have it in their hands. And now that I know that it's connected to some other books in a Universe, I'm off to read them because I'm officially obsessed with the Constantines 😍
(Feel free to ask for safety details and I'll shoot a dm! 🙂)
*ARC Provided In Exchange For A Honest Review*
September 2, 2022
so let me get this straight. this is a man who is into very hardcore bdsm that went very wrong, and in order to avoid temptation he not only becomes a priest but also the headmaster of an all girls catholic school where he gets to punish girls who misbehave???? who let this man around teenagers????
June 30, 2021
If this hero is a priest then I'm the Virgin Mary 🤡
July 6, 2021
5 Corruption of the Soul Stars �
Lessons in Sin had the right balance for the perfect taboo read, well for me anyway. Apart from the morally wrong shenanigans between a priest and his student, it was wonderfully naughty and perverse without tipping me over to creeped out. Honestly I can't deal with a barely adult girl going all Lolita on a guy. It feels wrong and tasteless and I'm sticking to my belief on the matter. But a smart girl that brings a man to his knees? Do your worst...
Tinsley Constantine was a bright young girl banished to Catholic boarding school for being promiscuous. At first her intent was to be kicked out, however she didn't foresee her biggest hindrance, Father Magnus Falke. Forget tough love, for he was the master of discipline, lust and hellfire.
"Disrespect?" She laughed mockingly.
"It's called a backbone, and it's pronounced, Go fuck yourself."
His initial thoughts were of another entitled, ill-mannered student needing to be cut down to size. But strip away a few layers, and Tinsley's verbal barb's and intelligence had Father Magnus questioning all his prior beliefs. Because this paradox sparked his interest.
"They call it Morning Worship." I stared at the wall before me, basking in his discomfort. "To think when the lights go out, all these dutiful prayer hands are petting the kitty in your honour."
Their first interactions were completely above board. A wayward girl needing direction and a teacher who didn't put up with any shit. Except when awareness eventually kicked in, it was time to get the rosary beads, or BOB out...
This was happening. Not because I'd planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn't been called to be a priest. I'd been called to be hers.
I'm not going to mince my words because this was scorching hot. I mean, holy shit was it insanely wrong but also a huge turn on. As the story built momentum and vulnerabilities exposed, I forgot why Father Magnus and Tinsley were refraining. It was about a man seeking absolution and a young woman wanting freedom to just be. For an age gap, taboo read, I haven't read something this addictive in a long while! Just leave all your inhibitions behind.
Lessons in Sin had the right balance for the perfect taboo read, well for me anyway. Apart from the morally wrong shenanigans between a priest and his student, it was wonderfully naughty and perverse without tipping me over to creeped out. Honestly I can't deal with a barely adult girl going all Lolita on a guy. It feels wrong and tasteless and I'm sticking to my belief on the matter. But a smart girl that brings a man to his knees? Do your worst...
Tinsley Constantine was a bright young girl banished to Catholic boarding school for being promiscuous. At first her intent was to be kicked out, however she didn't foresee her biggest hindrance, Father Magnus Falke. Forget tough love, for he was the master of discipline, lust and hellfire.
"Disrespect?" She laughed mockingly.
"It's called a backbone, and it's pronounced, Go fuck yourself."
His initial thoughts were of another entitled, ill-mannered student needing to be cut down to size. But strip away a few layers, and Tinsley's verbal barb's and intelligence had Father Magnus questioning all his prior beliefs. Because this paradox sparked his interest.
"They call it Morning Worship." I stared at the wall before me, basking in his discomfort. "To think when the lights go out, all these dutiful prayer hands are petting the kitty in your honour."
Their first interactions were completely above board. A wayward girl needing direction and a teacher who didn't put up with any shit. Except when awareness eventually kicked in, it was time to get the rosary beads, or BOB out...
This was happening. Not because I'd planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn't been called to be a priest. I'd been called to be hers.
I'm not going to mince my words because this was scorching hot. I mean, holy shit was it insanely wrong but also a huge turn on. As the story built momentum and vulnerabilities exposed, I forgot why Father Magnus and Tinsley were refraining. It was about a man seeking absolution and a young woman wanting freedom to just be. For an age gap, taboo read, I haven't read something this addictive in a long while! Just leave all your inhibitions behind.
February 15, 2022
3.5�
i dont see how one could pet these lil monsters. i looked em up and my skin crawl spot on. creepy as fuck
ɴᴇᴀʀ 4 / 4 sᴛᴀʀs ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛs, ғᴀ� ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛs �
� her 1st confession and him smelling her ass lmao
� kissing jesus’s feet (mortifying but come on)
� when they freed her opossum and the scene after
� tampon + gym room (sweetest scene 4 me)
� their cute interactions when theyre not fucking
ᴅɪᴅɴ� ʟɪᴋᴇ, sʜᴏᴜʟᴅɴᴛ ᴇxɪs�, 2 sᴛᴀʀs �
� other scenes that’s not the H and the h together
� including irrelevant tucker moments
� no particular stuff but sometimes it gets boring
ǫᴜᴏᴛᴇs sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ɴᴏᴡ �
2 years later
anywayss.. i dont think there’s anything tinsley can do that is a turnoff for magnus. i mean, he scrubbed her period blood from the floor and hand washed her blood-soaked underwear later on. fucking sweet this man
tbh i liked the smut more in , so ngl while i liked some, i also skimmed some. i really liked the mcs interaction when they’re not engaging on sexual things (gets old) tho. saved by the cute shit
i mean yeah this didnt feel like a taboo priest romance at all, just an ordinary forbidden student-teacher story, but i was wholly expecting thatz it was enjoyable for what it is
ʜᴇʀ� ᴀʀ� sᴏᴍ� ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ǫᴜᴏᴛᴇs ᴛʜᴀ� ɪs ᴇɪᴛʜᴇʀ ᴄʜᴇᴇsʏ ᴀɴ� ᴏᴛ� ᴏʀ ᴄᴜᴛᴇ ᴀɴ� sᴡᴇᴇᴛ, ᴅᴇᴘᴇɴᴅs ᴏ� ʜᴏᴡ � ʟᴏᴏ� ᴀ� ɪ�
ᴏᴠᴇʀᴀʟʟ ᴀɪɴ� ʙᴀ�. ɪ ᴇʏᴇ ʀᴏʟʟᴇ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ�, sᴋɪᴍᴍᴇ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ� (ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅɴ� ʙ� ᴍᴇ ɪғ ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ�), ᴡᴀsɴ� ғᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ ɪ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ�, ʙᴜᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀs � ᴇɴᴛᴇʀᴛᴀɪɴɪɴɢ�
yea, opossums' true color
’I hadn’t been called to be a priest.
I’d been called to be hers.
Whether this was kismet, God’s will, some divine decree, or a fucking cosmic alignment, I didn’t care. I didn’t need an explanation to be with her. Just like I didn’t need an explanation to breathe. I did both by instinct�
i dont see how one could pet these lil monsters. i looked em up and my skin crawl spot on. creepy as fuck
ɴᴇᴀʀ 4 / 4 sᴛᴀʀs ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛs, ғᴀ� ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛs �
� her 1st confession and him smelling her ass lmao
� kissing jesus’s feet (mortifying but come on)
� when they freed her opossum and the scene after
� tampon + gym room (sweetest scene 4 me)
� their cute interactions when theyre not fucking
ᴅɪᴅɴ� ʟɪᴋᴇ, sʜᴏᴜʟᴅɴᴛ ᴇxɪs�, 2 sᴛᴀʀs �
� other scenes that’s not the H and the h together
� including irrelevant tucker moments
� no particular stuff but sometimes it gets boring
ǫᴜᴏᴛᴇs sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ɴᴏᴡ �
”You’re late,� I snarled, torn between kicking her out and giving her something substantial to choke on.
“Oh, come on.� She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Only two minutes late. Are you seriously going to be a vagina about it?�
“A vagina?�
“The fleshy pink canoe between a woman’s legs.� She panted, trying to catch her breath. “I know it’s been a while since you paddled one, but surely you remember what it is.�
“I do remember. Quite fondly.�
“Yeah?� She grinned, raising her eyebrows.
“Which is why I’m confounded to hear you use that part of the female body as a derogatory term. Given your infernal feminist tongue-lashings, I would expect you to use the word vagina as a compliment rather than associate it with weakness.�
Her mouth hung open, and she made a strangling noise.
“You’re so right.� She smacked a hand against her forehead and groaned. “I’m an idiot. I wasn’t thinking and� Gah! There’s no excuse for it. What I said was offensive and ignorant, and I’m sorry.� She straightened her spine and met my eyes, looking so irresistibly, gorgeously shamefaced. “I’ll kiss the Jesus or scrub the floors or whatever you decide. No resistance. I’m a total shithead.�
2 years later
”Hey, handsome. I saw a chipmunk.� Her gaze returned to the shrubs where she’d been crawling, reluctant to let it go.
“You’re late.� I pointed at my watch as if it were the most important thing in the world.
“What’s that?� She leaned toward me, cupping a hand behind her ear. “Oh? I look absolutely ravishing today?� Her fists went to her hips as she smiled innocently. “Why, thank you, dear husband. You always say the sweetest things.�
I bit my lip as blood surged to my cock. “I’m going to fuck the shit out of your pussy.�
“Why don’t you? We’re all waiting.� She gestured to the surrounding habitats, indicating her menagerie of animals.
anywayss.. i dont think there’s anything tinsley can do that is a turnoff for magnus. i mean, he scrubbed her period blood from the floor and hand washed her blood-soaked underwear later on. fucking sweet this man
”I’m insane to want anything with you, Magnus Falke. But if I could have just one thing, it’s you on your knees, inserting my tampons every month.� Her blue eyes sparkled with restrained humor. “You’re a natural.�
tbh i liked the smut more in , so ngl while i liked some, i also skimmed some. i really liked the mcs interaction when they’re not engaging on sexual things (gets old) tho. saved by the cute shit
”Remove your underwear.�
“Where’s the bloody pair that you never returned?�
“Clean and safely stored in its new home beneath my pillow.�
She floated into my space, her hands and chest sliding up my torso, her toes stretching, mouth reaching, hunting for mine. “You’re such a creeper.�
“Only for you.�
i mean yeah this didnt feel like a taboo priest romance at all, just an ordinary forbidden student-teacher story, but i was wholly expecting thatz it was enjoyable for what it is
”You’re my first.�
“Your first girl to pee on the floor.�
Ԩ.�
“Your first to bleed on her shoes.�
Ԩ.�
“Your first tampon insertion.�
“Yep.� I felt my lips quirking into a smile, such a strange sensation.
“Man, I’m classy as fuck.�
“You’re classy, even under duress. Especially then.�
“Thank you.� She kissed my chest, her voice drowsy. “I’m your first orgasm in a church.�
“First and second.�
“Oh, yeah. The confessional blow job.� She sighed. “That was so hot.� Her eyes drifted closed. “What else?�
“You’re my first overnight.�
“Like the first girl to sleep beside you?�
“The very first person.�
“E?�
“E.�
“Happy to help you work through those commitment issues,� she murmured, snuggling closer to my neck.
I hadn’t allowed this level of intimacy with anyone, not even my regular lovers. When I wasn’t fucking a woman, I didn’t want her around.
The soft rhythm of her breathing told me she’d fallen asleep. The warmth of her body atop mine lulled me to follow her.
“You’re my first.� I ran my fingers through her hair, content to my marrow. “And my last.�
ʜᴇʀ� ᴀʀ� sᴏᴍ� ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ǫᴜᴏᴛᴇs ᴛʜᴀ� ɪs ᴇɪᴛʜᴇʀ ᴄʜᴇᴇsʏ ᴀɴ� ᴏᴛ� ᴏʀ ᴄᴜᴛᴇ ᴀɴ� sᴡᴇᴇᴛ, ᴅᴇᴘᴇɴᴅs ᴏ� ʜᴏᴡ � ʟᴏᴏ� ᴀ� ɪ�
’I’d never engaged in a kiss that didn’t lead to sex. I’d never kissed a woman just for the sake of kissing. But I kissed Tinsley for two hours. I kissed her until our lips were numb and swollen and the taste of her mouth embedded itself in my soul.�
‘He gave me the teacher and the priest, the sinner and the sadist, the greatest of lovers and the staunch protector.
Our bond was eternal, and that was the grand prize, the best gift this universe had to offer.
He was my freedom.
My journey.
My destination.
My one great passion.
My choice.
My love.
My lessons in sin.�
“They keep me company.� She followed me into the classroom, still talking about the opossums. “It’ll probably sound dumb to you, but they’re all I have here. I’ll be devastated when they move on. But I’ll also be proud and blissfully happy. I only want the best for them.� She smiled to herself. “Animals are better than people.�
“How so?�
“They don’t judge. They don’t hate. If humans had hearts like opossums, what a beautiful world this would be.�
If people had hearts like Tinsley Constantine, my faith in humanity would be renewed.
ᴏᴠᴇʀᴀʟʟ ᴀɪɴ� ʙᴀ�. ɪ ᴇʏᴇ ʀᴏʟʟᴇ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ�, sᴋɪᴍᴍᴇ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ� (ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅɴ� ʙ� ᴍᴇ ɪғ ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ�), ᴡᴀsɴ� ғᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ ɪ� ᴏ� sᴏᴍ�, ʙᴜᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀs � ᴇɴᴛᴇʀᴛᴀɪɴɪɴɢ�
yea, opossums' true color
June 10, 2021
Always a master at her craft, Pam delivers the familiar and forbidden in a new light. Lessons in Sin is unexpected, sexy, and completely addictive.
Read
April 24, 2024Source of book: Kindle Unlimited
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
Spoilers. Content guidance for bodily fluid, taboo relationships, abusive relationships, violence towards women, death.
Look, this is a Pam Godwin book. I don’t know what else to tell you. She is the living embodiment of “our amp goes up to eleven�.
And frankly, I live for it.
Whether you live for it is, of course, a personal choice.
This book, in particular, even by Pam Godwin standards, is a bit of a taboo-adjacent multi-car pileup. The heroine is eighteen. The hero is in his early forties. He’s also her teacher. And a priest. I mean, at some point you kind of go through problematic and come out at “what the hell�, amirite? To be honest, there’s quite a lot in the premise of Lessons in Sin that are my personal immediate squicks: I really cannot be doing with teacher/student for what are probably fairly obvious reasons, and somehow PG contrives to make the power dynamics of that already fucked-the-fuck-up situation even worse by having by the hero directly in control of the heroine’s future, alongside granting him the capacity to discipline her (including physically) at will.
Err. Yeah. It’s not okay. But here we are.
The basic plot here is that our heroine, err ... Tinsley (Tinsley? Do Americans call their children this?), is the youngest daughter of some kind of rich business-empire-having, faintly sinister family (though they aren’t explicitly the mafia). Her role is basically to be sold off as a trophy wife to secure the family’s interests in some nebulous way but, being a smart and feisty type, she’s not interested in that future for herself. Her main rebellion so far has been giving blowjobs to fast food restaurant employees, which her mother does not appreciate, and thus has had her shipped off to a catholic reform school in the middle of nowhere. Enter Father Magnus Folke, a smoking hawt, former billionaire turned priest, who is placed in sole charge of Tinsley’s education and discipline. Needless to say, Tinsley is determined to act out and get expelled, Magnus is determined to subdue her, it gets all sexy, but also kinda sweet in places, and the final conflict mostly comes down to extricating Tinsley from her own family’s ambitions.
Let me get this out of the way first. Magnus Folke is a fucking terrible teacher. Like even aside from rough-banging his own student, he’s a fucking terrible teacher. Like, at one point his best mate, another priest, and also a teacher tells him:
What? No. No, they are not. They are fucking terrible educational tools. Have you guys been on a single teacher training course? Like, ever? Jesus Christ. There’s also a moment when a young woman gets a bit breathless trying to keep up with Magnus (who is a gazillion feet tall, because he's a romance hero) and he immediately assigns her extra physical exercise because apparently body-shaming is also a big part of his curriculum.
Body-shaming and fear. What a way to raise young women.
In all honesty, even putting aside my personal feelings about the tropes and dynamics being explored here, Lessons in Sin was not my favourite Pam Godwin, though it is replete in all the Pam Godwinisms I relish. The snappy dialogue is there, the sexual and emotional tension between the leads, the enthusiastically-consenting heroines, the alpha dick heroes who, once they've got past their treating the heroine badly phase, treat her really well, along with the general flair and panache she brings to a subgenre that--and this is coming from a fan of that subgenre--can sometimes become a bit samey. Like there's only so many ways to write a sparky heroine and a tormented hero, but I genuinely think, as this point, I could pick a Pam Godwin character out of a line-up of women with heart-shaped faces and men with cold grey eyes. For whatever reason, I tend to find her heroines genuinely likeable, and her heroes ... well. She gives them lines that hover so close to the edge of utter absurdity they make me kick my heels with glee:
Verities, my good gawd man, your internal monologue.
I think even for a Godwin hero, Folke is singularly lacking in self-irony. He's gone into the priesthood as a means of keeping his depraved desires in check, depraved desires that Tinsley points out later (and this might be one of the reason I appreciate Godwin's heroines so much: they tend to be pretty genre savvy and low bullshit, compared to their heroes who are, frankly, so much the drama they ought to go on RuPaul's Drag Race) are basically just for rough sex. Except I secretly (or not secretly since I discuss it at length on GR) kind of enjoy this kind of hero. I'm not sure I find it sexy, per se, but I really do love drama.
The other thing I should probably mention? applaud? is that Lessons in Sin, for better or worse, is PG's wettest work, including the book that is set at sea on a pirate ship. There are a lot of bodily fluids in here, some intentionally produced, some involuntarily so, and I was mildly surprised, since it's not the sort of thing one sees too often in romance. But I'm very here for the normalisation of bodies-being-bodies, although perhaps not quite as here as Father Magnus:
I did, however, end up going down a research rabbit hole following a scene in the latter part of the book, where the heroine--at the end of term ball, while wearing a white dress--goes full Carrie and begins to spontaneously menstruate, to the extent that it leaves an actual sizeable puddle on the floor. Like, obviously I'm not an expert on menstruation, but that feels ... that feels quite unfortunate? I mean, physically, not just socially. I'm aware that flow can differ quite substantially from person to person, and according to the internet, that can sometimes mean soaking through sanitary products within thirty minutes or an hour, but surely not bleeding out in the middle of a dance like a wild west gunslinger who isn't getting back to little Mary-Kate any time soon? Anyway, she's fine, and goes onto have vigorous sex with Folke immediately after, and it's absolutely not my place to be second-guessing how people menstruate (fictionally or otherwise). I just think that if someone ejected an amount of blood sufficient to create splash zone from any part of their body I would personally be taking them to hospital, not to bed.
Practicalities aside, however, it's always cool to see period sex on page. And I will never not admire PG's commitment to going there. Err, I mean in general, not just as regards any particular sex act or sex occasion. While her books are not for me on so many levels, I still delight in what she does, and I think the fact I read her teacher/student priest book is testament to how much trust I'm willing to give her.
All of which said, Lessons in Sin left me ultimately a touch meh. It might just be a case of not being able to get the past the tropes, but I also think there were a few ways in which the tropes proved hard to navigate on their own terms. For starters, because ... how can I say this ... because priests and young people do not have a happy history together, the book has to kind go out of its way to establish that Magnus Folke has an overwhelming fetish for older women only, and that Tinsley is therefore a sexual/romantic aberration for him. Don't get me wrong, I think this is absolutely the right choice, because a hero who serially sexually engages with the young woman in his care is not a hero, he's a ... he's a, you know, an abuser.
But ensuring Magnus doesn't come across as the wrong kind pervert, has the side effect of forcing Tinsley into a Not Like Other Girls type role--she's the only young woman he's ever slept with, the only woman he's ever felt anything for, the only woman he doesn't need to brutalise to get off--which ends up feeling ickier than is perhaps intended or desirable. Like, I get Horrible To Everyone But You is a trope for a reason, but Sadistic Misogynist To Everyone Except You reads kinda differently, at least to me. Especially when Magnus also has the "inadvertently killed a woman during consensual kinky sex" back plot--not one of my faves, if I'm honest. Like, I think there's mileage to be had in exploring the reality of kink-gone-wrong, but in practice it tends to boil down to "look how how sad it makes men when they accidentally kill women" and Lessons in Sin is no exception here. Again, I know it's a trope, or at least a convention of the genre, that the heroine will inevitably prove her superiority to all other women in the hero's life, but when the woman she is surpassing is dead, that's just fucking uncomfortable, and is even more uncomfortable when a lot of the language used around Tinsley's specialness in Magnus's eyes (i.e. that she's not like other eighteen-year-olds, she has an old soul etc.) overlaps pretty explicitly (though I think unintentionally) with the kind of language often to justify power-imbalanced relationships between older women and much younger women. There's even some lines about in Alanis Morisette's Hands Clean (which is sung from the perspective of her abuser).
Of course, Alanis speaking about a relationship where she's specifically underage, and there's a huge difference between an age-gap and a crime. But Tinsley/Magnus felt messy (even if not strictly illegal) for me personally, precisely because she's just legal and he's literally her teacher: but, again, this a self-consciously taboo dynamic and your mileage is going to vary. I think, for me, though, it wasn't so much the taboo that was the issue (as a fictional construct, I should add, real life is a very different matter) but the knock-on consequences of the work the book had to do around keeping that taboo on the right side of wrong. It also means that Lessons in Sin strays far closer to "cured of kinky sex by love" than I'm used to with PG. I mean, I'm probably being slightly unfair because it's clear by the end of the book they both like it rough, except Magnus does the whole "with you, and only you, I don't need it that way" and I always find that a bit eh. For starters, most of the other PG books I've read end on note of "with you, the love makes it even KINKIER", which I completely adore. But, while I think it's reasonable that you'd be willing to share certain acts in a loving context compared to a less trust-based environment, I'm not super comfortable with romance pushing the idea that love can make you like things you don't like. To me, it's just as important for the genre to affirm that it's flatly okay not to be into certain things, as it is to celebrate what you are into.
The other thing about Magnus's kinky 180 is that it makes him look a bit daft. I mean, imagine shaping your whole life around your medical-grade fetish for having abusive sex with older women only to discover you didn't, in fact, have that fetish.
Moving away from the Magnus of it all, I also slightly struggled with Tinsley's lack of agency throughout the book. Like, she's an eighteen year-old, she has no power, no resources of her own, she's literally at school. While she is herself very aware of this, I never felt she really got away from it. Like, she starts the book doomed to become a businessman's trophy wife and she ends the book about to become Magnus's wife: in the immortal worlds of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, that's just geography. And, yes, of course, we're meant to believe that Magnus loves her and therefore won't treat her like a trophy wife, that he'll let her do things like go to college and start an animal sanctuary but the "let" in that sentence feels kind of uncomfortable to me. It doesn't help that once Tinsley and Magnus are parted as part of the plot downturn, she has literally nothing to except wait and feel sad, until he turns up, having shucked the priesthood, and delivers an HEA to her of his own making. She gets to consent to the HEA, of course, but to a large extent it doesn't involve her. Also she's eighteen, Magnus is in his forties, they've known each other for a year: should they really be getting married? How will she feel when she's thirty and her husband is sixty-something? That's not quite as hot, is it (although, to be fair, I've known some incredibly hot sixty year olds, so maybe I shut my mouth). This could just be my own commitmentphobia spilling over the book like, well, like a bodily fluid but I honestly don't think anyone should be getting married at eighteen. Like there is not one choice I made, or would have made, as an eighteen year old that I would make now.
As a final note on Lessons in Sin--and this about me and my expectations, not the book itself--I was very much coming into it with my Sierra Simone/Tiffany Reisz glasses on, totally stoked for kink and Catholicism, and all that jazz. However, those are not the vibes. Magnus has zero actual faith to speak of. He joined the priesthood specifically to put a check on his kinky impulses and that's it. I'm not saying that's a flaw in the book, at all, it's an entirely legitimate creative choice for any author to make, but I personally felt it rendered the "priest" element of the story a bit toothless. Without faith to wrestle with, Magnus might as well have just been a teacher, you know?
Anyway, that's Lessons in Sin. And don't get me wrong: for everything that didn't work for me about the book, I still absolutely ate that shit up with a fucking spoon.
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
Spoilers. Content guidance for bodily fluid, taboo relationships, abusive relationships, violence towards women, death.
Look, this is a Pam Godwin book. I don’t know what else to tell you. She is the living embodiment of “our amp goes up to eleven�.
And frankly, I live for it.
Whether you live for it is, of course, a personal choice.
This book, in particular, even by Pam Godwin standards, is a bit of a taboo-adjacent multi-car pileup. The heroine is eighteen. The hero is in his early forties. He’s also her teacher. And a priest. I mean, at some point you kind of go through problematic and come out at “what the hell�, amirite? To be honest, there’s quite a lot in the premise of Lessons in Sin that are my personal immediate squicks: I really cannot be doing with teacher/student for what are probably fairly obvious reasons, and somehow PG contrives to make the power dynamics of that already fucked-the-fuck-up situation even worse by having by the hero directly in control of the heroine’s future, alongside granting him the capacity to discipline her (including physically) at will.
Err. Yeah. It’s not okay. But here we are.
The basic plot here is that our heroine, err ... Tinsley (Tinsley? Do Americans call their children this?), is the youngest daughter of some kind of rich business-empire-having, faintly sinister family (though they aren’t explicitly the mafia). Her role is basically to be sold off as a trophy wife to secure the family’s interests in some nebulous way but, being a smart and feisty type, she’s not interested in that future for herself. Her main rebellion so far has been giving blowjobs to fast food restaurant employees, which her mother does not appreciate, and thus has had her shipped off to a catholic reform school in the middle of nowhere. Enter Father Magnus Folke, a smoking hawt, former billionaire turned priest, who is placed in sole charge of Tinsley’s education and discipline. Needless to say, Tinsley is determined to act out and get expelled, Magnus is determined to subdue her, it gets all sexy, but also kinda sweet in places, and the final conflict mostly comes down to extricating Tinsley from her own family’s ambitions.
Let me get this out of the way first. Magnus Folke is a fucking terrible teacher. Like even aside from rough-banging his own student, he’s a fucking terrible teacher. Like, at one point his best mate, another priest, and also a teacher tells him:
“Maybe I don’t agree with all your teaching methods, but when it comes to motivating the unmotivated, fear and guilt are effective tools�
What? No. No, they are not. They are fucking terrible educational tools. Have you guys been on a single teacher training course? Like, ever? Jesus Christ. There’s also a moment when a young woman gets a bit breathless trying to keep up with Magnus (who is a gazillion feet tall, because he's a romance hero) and he immediately assigns her extra physical exercise because apparently body-shaming is also a big part of his curriculum.
Body-shaming and fear. What a way to raise young women.
In all honesty, even putting aside my personal feelings about the tropes and dynamics being explored here, Lessons in Sin was not my favourite Pam Godwin, though it is replete in all the Pam Godwinisms I relish. The snappy dialogue is there, the sexual and emotional tension between the leads, the enthusiastically-consenting heroines, the alpha dick heroes who, once they've got past their treating the heroine badly phase, treat her really well, along with the general flair and panache she brings to a subgenre that--and this is coming from a fan of that subgenre--can sometimes become a bit samey. Like there's only so many ways to write a sparky heroine and a tormented hero, but I genuinely think, as this point, I could pick a Pam Godwin character out of a line-up of women with heart-shaped faces and men with cold grey eyes. For whatever reason, I tend to find her heroines genuinely likeable, and her heroes ... well. She gives them lines that hover so close to the edge of utter absurdity they make me kick my heels with glee:
I wasn’t one to readily offer praise, but with her, I would spill the verities of my soul.
Verities, my good gawd man, your internal monologue.
I think even for a Godwin hero, Folke is singularly lacking in self-irony. He's gone into the priesthood as a means of keeping his depraved desires in check, depraved desires that Tinsley points out later (and this might be one of the reason I appreciate Godwin's heroines so much: they tend to be pretty genre savvy and low bullshit, compared to their heroes who are, frankly, so much the drama they ought to go on RuPaul's Drag Race) are basically just for rough sex. Except I secretly (or not secretly since I discuss it at length on GR) kind of enjoy this kind of hero. I'm not sure I find it sexy, per se, but I really do love drama.
The other thing I should probably mention? applaud? is that Lessons in Sin, for better or worse, is PG's wettest work, including the book that is set at sea on a pirate ship. There are a lot of bodily fluids in here, some intentionally produced, some involuntarily so, and I was mildly surprised, since it's not the sort of thing one sees too often in romance. But I'm very here for the normalisation of bodies-being-bodies, although perhaps not quite as here as Father Magnus:
Right here in my classroom, I could’ve broken my vow and fucked her with piss on her legs, virgin blood on my dick, and her heavenly tears soaking the hand I would’ve held so tightly to her mouth.
I did, however, end up going down a research rabbit hole following a scene in the latter part of the book, where the heroine--at the end of term ball, while wearing a white dress--goes full Carrie and begins to spontaneously menstruate, to the extent that it leaves an actual sizeable puddle on the floor. Like, obviously I'm not an expert on menstruation, but that feels ... that feels quite unfortunate? I mean, physically, not just socially. I'm aware that flow can differ quite substantially from person to person, and according to the internet, that can sometimes mean soaking through sanitary products within thirty minutes or an hour, but surely not bleeding out in the middle of a dance like a wild west gunslinger who isn't getting back to little Mary-Kate any time soon? Anyway, she's fine, and goes onto have vigorous sex with Folke immediately after, and it's absolutely not my place to be second-guessing how people menstruate (fictionally or otherwise). I just think that if someone ejected an amount of blood sufficient to create splash zone from any part of their body I would personally be taking them to hospital, not to bed.
Practicalities aside, however, it's always cool to see period sex on page. And I will never not admire PG's commitment to going there. Err, I mean in general, not just as regards any particular sex act or sex occasion. While her books are not for me on so many levels, I still delight in what she does, and I think the fact I read her teacher/student priest book is testament to how much trust I'm willing to give her.
All of which said, Lessons in Sin left me ultimately a touch meh. It might just be a case of not being able to get the past the tropes, but I also think there were a few ways in which the tropes proved hard to navigate on their own terms. For starters, because ... how can I say this ... because priests and young people do not have a happy history together, the book has to kind go out of its way to establish that Magnus Folke has an overwhelming fetish for older women only, and that Tinsley is therefore a sexual/romantic aberration for him. Don't get me wrong, I think this is absolutely the right choice, because a hero who serially sexually engages with the young woman in his care is not a hero, he's a ... he's a, you know, an abuser.
But ensuring Magnus doesn't come across as the wrong kind pervert, has the side effect of forcing Tinsley into a Not Like Other Girls type role--she's the only young woman he's ever slept with, the only woman he's ever felt anything for, the only woman he doesn't need to brutalise to get off--which ends up feeling ickier than is perhaps intended or desirable. Like, I get Horrible To Everyone But You is a trope for a reason, but Sadistic Misogynist To Everyone Except You reads kinda differently, at least to me. Especially when Magnus also has the "inadvertently killed a woman during consensual kinky sex" back plot--not one of my faves, if I'm honest. Like, I think there's mileage to be had in exploring the reality of kink-gone-wrong, but in practice it tends to boil down to "look how how sad it makes men when they accidentally kill women" and Lessons in Sin is no exception here. Again, I know it's a trope, or at least a convention of the genre, that the heroine will inevitably prove her superiority to all other women in the hero's life, but when the woman she is surpassing is dead, that's just fucking uncomfortable, and is even more uncomfortable when a lot of the language used around Tinsley's specialness in Magnus's eyes (i.e. that she's not like other eighteen-year-olds, she has an old soul etc.) overlaps pretty explicitly (though I think unintentionally) with the kind of language often to justify power-imbalanced relationships between older women and much younger women. There's even some lines about in Alanis Morisette's Hands Clean (which is sung from the perspective of her abuser).
If it weren't for your maturity, none of this would have happened If you weren't so wise beyond your years I would've been able to control myself.
Of course, Alanis speaking about a relationship where she's specifically underage, and there's a huge difference between an age-gap and a crime. But Tinsley/Magnus felt messy (even if not strictly illegal) for me personally, precisely because she's just legal and he's literally her teacher: but, again, this a self-consciously taboo dynamic and your mileage is going to vary. I think, for me, though, it wasn't so much the taboo that was the issue (as a fictional construct, I should add, real life is a very different matter) but the knock-on consequences of the work the book had to do around keeping that taboo on the right side of wrong. It also means that Lessons in Sin strays far closer to "cured of kinky sex by love" than I'm used to with PG. I mean, I'm probably being slightly unfair because it's clear by the end of the book they both like it rough, except Magnus does the whole "with you, and only you, I don't need it that way" and I always find that a bit eh. For starters, most of the other PG books I've read end on note of "with you, the love makes it even KINKIER", which I completely adore. But, while I think it's reasonable that you'd be willing to share certain acts in a loving context compared to a less trust-based environment, I'm not super comfortable with romance pushing the idea that love can make you like things you don't like. To me, it's just as important for the genre to affirm that it's flatly okay not to be into certain things, as it is to celebrate what you are into.
The other thing about Magnus's kinky 180 is that it makes him look a bit daft. I mean, imagine shaping your whole life around your medical-grade fetish for having abusive sex with older women only to discover you didn't, in fact, have that fetish.
Moving away from the Magnus of it all, I also slightly struggled with Tinsley's lack of agency throughout the book. Like, she's an eighteen year-old, she has no power, no resources of her own, she's literally at school. While she is herself very aware of this, I never felt she really got away from it. Like, she starts the book doomed to become a businessman's trophy wife and she ends the book about to become Magnus's wife: in the immortal worlds of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, that's just geography. And, yes, of course, we're meant to believe that Magnus loves her and therefore won't treat her like a trophy wife, that he'll let her do things like go to college and start an animal sanctuary but the "let" in that sentence feels kind of uncomfortable to me. It doesn't help that once Tinsley and Magnus are parted as part of the plot downturn, she has literally nothing to except wait and feel sad, until he turns up, having shucked the priesthood, and delivers an HEA to her of his own making. She gets to consent to the HEA, of course, but to a large extent it doesn't involve her. Also she's eighteen, Magnus is in his forties, they've known each other for a year: should they really be getting married? How will she feel when she's thirty and her husband is sixty-something? That's not quite as hot, is it (although, to be fair, I've known some incredibly hot sixty year olds, so maybe I shut my mouth). This could just be my own commitmentphobia spilling over the book like, well, like a bodily fluid but I honestly don't think anyone should be getting married at eighteen. Like there is not one choice I made, or would have made, as an eighteen year old that I would make now.
As a final note on Lessons in Sin--and this about me and my expectations, not the book itself--I was very much coming into it with my Sierra Simone/Tiffany Reisz glasses on, totally stoked for kink and Catholicism, and all that jazz. However, those are not the vibes. Magnus has zero actual faith to speak of. He joined the priesthood specifically to put a check on his kinky impulses and that's it. I'm not saying that's a flaw in the book, at all, it's an entirely legitimate creative choice for any author to make, but I personally felt it rendered the "priest" element of the story a bit toothless. Without faith to wrestle with, Magnus might as well have just been a teacher, you know?
Anyway, that's Lessons in Sin. And don't get me wrong: for everything that didn't work for me about the book, I still absolutely ate that shit up with a fucking spoon.
June 26, 2021
4.5 stars
Well, Pam Godwin certainly delivered with this taboo, forbidden priest romance! Between a teacher/student (who is 18) with a HUGE age gap. It’s not too dark for a Pam Godwin book, but again, there’s taboo and plenty of kink. I adored our main characters, who are at each other’s throats from the moment that they meet. If you love Sierra Simone’s Priest or Tiffany Reisz’s The Original Sinners (both of which I do) and you’re looking for another priest to fall in love with, Father Magnus will be perfect for you.
Tinsley Constantine is the youngest of her insanely powerful, wealthy family. When this heiress is caught giving a BJ to a Burger King employee, her mother sends her off to an all-girls Catholic boarding school to reform her naughty ways. Her new teacher/disciplinarian is Father Magnus Falke, who is as cold and cruel as he is gorgeous, even at 40. Tinsley knows the best way to get herself kicked out of school is to make her teacher’s life hell, but unfortunately for her, Magnus knows how to give it right back.
Tinsley is such an awesome heroine! I loved her strength and sassy, unfiltered mouth. Even though she tries to show Magnus her worst, he sees her intelligence and compassion underneath, which draws him in. Tinsley is insanely attracted to Magnus, but it’s during their one on one sessions that she slowly starts to fall for him. I loved the progression of their romance, from hating each other and constantly arguing to having genuine, thoughtful conversations which then turn into something steamy and forbidden. Pam Godwin truly makes you believe in their love and romance despite the many, many obstacles between them.
The ending was perfection!! So much angst and heartache, but just as much love and romance too. My heart was swooning. Magnus might be an asshole, but he’s one who loves with all of his heart. I had the best time reading Lessons in Sin - it was exactly what I wanted from Pam Godwin!
Also! Apparently the entire Constantine family is getting their books (some already have) but they’re being written by different authors. I’m really looking forward to K. Webster’s, who wrote about Winston, the oldest!
Pam Godwin? Writing a PRIEST ROMANCE?? 👀
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.�
His breath left him.
“I tried to seduce a priest.�
Well, Pam Godwin certainly delivered with this taboo, forbidden priest romance! Between a teacher/student (who is 18) with a HUGE age gap. It’s not too dark for a Pam Godwin book, but again, there’s taboo and plenty of kink. I adored our main characters, who are at each other’s throats from the moment that they meet. If you love Sierra Simone’s Priest or Tiffany Reisz’s The Original Sinners (both of which I do) and you’re looking for another priest to fall in love with, Father Magnus will be perfect for you.
Tinsley Constantine is the youngest of her insanely powerful, wealthy family. When this heiress is caught giving a BJ to a Burger King employee, her mother sends her off to an all-girls Catholic boarding school to reform her naughty ways. Her new teacher/disciplinarian is Father Magnus Falke, who is as cold and cruel as he is gorgeous, even at 40. Tinsley knows the best way to get herself kicked out of school is to make her teacher’s life hell, but unfortunately for her, Magnus knows how to give it right back.
Tinsley is such an awesome heroine! I loved her strength and sassy, unfiltered mouth. Even though she tries to show Magnus her worst, he sees her intelligence and compassion underneath, which draws him in. Tinsley is insanely attracted to Magnus, but it’s during their one on one sessions that she slowly starts to fall for him. I loved the progression of their romance, from hating each other and constantly arguing to having genuine, thoughtful conversations which then turn into something steamy and forbidden. Pam Godwin truly makes you believe in their love and romance despite the many, many obstacles between them.
This was happening. Not because I’d planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn’t been called to be a priest. I’d been called to be hers.
The ending was perfection!! So much angst and heartache, but just as much love and romance too. My heart was swooning. Magnus might be an asshole, but he’s one who loves with all of his heart. I had the best time reading Lessons in Sin - it was exactly what I wanted from Pam Godwin!
Also! Apparently the entire Constantine family is getting their books (some already have) but they’re being written by different authors. I’m really looking forward to K. Webster’s, who wrote about Winston, the oldest!
Pam Godwin? Writing a PRIEST ROMANCE?? 👀
July 15, 2021
"If you leave me here," I said, "I'll tarnish our family name so completely you won't be able to keep it out of the press."
WHEW!
Let me tell you something: when Shelly and I were approved for this arc, we immediately dropped everything we were currently reading and commenced on an epic buddy read that mostly consisted of sending priest gifs back and forth:
Being the taboo/forbidden book that is, it certainly won't be for everyone, but it's fair to note that, while the relationship isn't something that most people would condone in real life due to the position of authority that Magnus has over Tinsley, she is 18 and of age. Also? No one, and I mean no one writes forbidden, taboo romance like Pam Godwin.
If you enjoy dark romance, you should just go into this blind and enjoy the ride. The slow burning build between Magnus and Tinsley is positively delicious, and gives the story a sexy vibe, rather than a creepy one. If you're a fan of the Midnight Dynasty collection of stories, you'll see some familiar faces throughout, but if you haven't read those, don't worry; this book can be read as a complete standalone. If you're looking for a super sexy read that is unputdownable, you NEED this one.
*Many thanks to Candi Kane PR for my review copy.
WHEW!
Let me tell you something: when Shelly and I were approved for this arc, we immediately dropped everything we were currently reading and commenced on an epic buddy read that mostly consisted of sending priest gifs back and forth:
Being the taboo/forbidden book that is, it certainly won't be for everyone, but it's fair to note that, while the relationship isn't something that most people would condone in real life due to the position of authority that Magnus has over Tinsley, she is 18 and of age. Also? No one, and I mean no one writes forbidden, taboo romance like Pam Godwin.
If you enjoy dark romance, you should just go into this blind and enjoy the ride. The slow burning build between Magnus and Tinsley is positively delicious, and gives the story a sexy vibe, rather than a creepy one. If you're a fan of the Midnight Dynasty collection of stories, you'll see some familiar faces throughout, but if you haven't read those, don't worry; this book can be read as a complete standalone. If you're looking for a super sexy read that is unputdownable, you NEED this one.
*Many thanks to Candi Kane PR for my review copy.
June 16, 2021
This is by far the most sensual and seductive book I’ve read so far this year. Pam Godwin has a way with words and her writing is without a doubt flawless. It gripped my since page one and made me devour this book.
Lessons in sin has been one of my most anticipated releases this year,, I mean common ; A forbidden, dirty as fuck , priest romance with an age gap? never added a book faster.
Im not going to lie, this was pretty predictable and I knew exactly what I was in for the moment in picked this book up. It’s almost exactly what you expect going into it.
BUT. This book is definitely not for everyone it’s dark and there are a few scenes that might make some uncomfortable. There is humiliation and spanking and breath play.
The age gap is huge too. Tinsley(18) and Magnus(41).
She’s eighteen. Legal age of consent. Technically, an adult.
Story: Tinsley Constantine, youngest of the Constantines, has been sent to the Sion Academy to be disciplined after almost staring a scandal. As a senior, most of her classes will be handled by Father Magnus, an unbelievably sexy and masculine human whom I would as to choke me if he were real.
Moments I didn’t like? The bitchy queen bee of the academy. Give me a break, really. The bitch called Tinsley “keatons sister�. I’m rolling my eyes but I guess every book needs a bitch.
In the beginning I was a little skeptical about Tinsley’s personality. The moments of her loving animals like bats, opossums and falcons made me think that the author was trying a little too hard to make her “not like the other girls� but later on, I have to say that I completely fell in love with her personality.
“He’s strict, demanding, and has the emotional sensitivity of a coffin.
Not only did she have a back bone but she was extremely intelligent and had a way with words. Her calling Magnus out on his shit and reprimanding him whenever he belittled her was both satisfying and brilliant.
“Disrespect?� She laughed mockingly. “It’s called a backbone, and it’s pronounced, Go fuck yourself.�
Now onto Father Magnus. Do I even need to say anything? This man has a starring role to play my latest wet dreams.
“Remove your underwear.�
“Where’s the bloody pair that you never returned?�
“Clean and safely stored in its new home beneath my pillow.�
He was protective, possessive, obsessive and my personal favourite : Worshipping. He was an absolute asshole and the levels of second hand embarrassment I went through made me absolutely loathe him in the beginning. But unfortunately some parts of me didn’t get the “we hate Magnus� message and continued to drool over him.
“You’re my first.� I ran my fingers through her hair, content to my marrow. “And my last.�
He was such a well written character and he honestly surprised me. I genuinely thought he would be a typical alpha male, but he had his moments. Especially when he worshiped her when she got her period.
Your only responsibility is following my order and giving me access to your pussy.�
Overall: this book was so much fun. It gave me what I wanted. Their moments together were painfully erotic without them being physically together. Their chemistry was off the pages from day one. I’m so happy I got an Arc of this book. I would totally recommend this to anyone who is in the mood for something dark and kinky.
“So no, I’m not scared of you. I treasure you beyond words.�
Lessons in sin has been one of my most anticipated releases this year,, I mean common ; A forbidden, dirty as fuck , priest romance with an age gap? never added a book faster.
Im not going to lie, this was pretty predictable and I knew exactly what I was in for the moment in picked this book up. It’s almost exactly what you expect going into it.
BUT. This book is definitely not for everyone it’s dark and there are a few scenes that might make some uncomfortable. There is humiliation and spanking and breath play.
The age gap is huge too. Tinsley(18) and Magnus(41).
She’s eighteen. Legal age of consent. Technically, an adult.
Story: Tinsley Constantine, youngest of the Constantines, has been sent to the Sion Academy to be disciplined after almost staring a scandal. As a senior, most of her classes will be handled by Father Magnus, an unbelievably sexy and masculine human whom I would as to choke me if he were real.
Moments I didn’t like? The bitchy queen bee of the academy. Give me a break, really. The bitch called Tinsley “keatons sister�. I’m rolling my eyes but I guess every book needs a bitch.
In the beginning I was a little skeptical about Tinsley’s personality. The moments of her loving animals like bats, opossums and falcons made me think that the author was trying a little too hard to make her “not like the other girls� but later on, I have to say that I completely fell in love with her personality.
“He’s strict, demanding, and has the emotional sensitivity of a coffin.
Not only did she have a back bone but she was extremely intelligent and had a way with words. Her calling Magnus out on his shit and reprimanding him whenever he belittled her was both satisfying and brilliant.
“Disrespect?� She laughed mockingly. “It’s called a backbone, and it’s pronounced, Go fuck yourself.�
Now onto Father Magnus. Do I even need to say anything? This man has a starring role to play my latest wet dreams.
“Remove your underwear.�
“Where’s the bloody pair that you never returned?�
“Clean and safely stored in its new home beneath my pillow.�
He was protective, possessive, obsessive and my personal favourite : Worshipping. He was an absolute asshole and the levels of second hand embarrassment I went through made me absolutely loathe him in the beginning. But unfortunately some parts of me didn’t get the “we hate Magnus� message and continued to drool over him.
“You’re my first.� I ran my fingers through her hair, content to my marrow. “And my last.�
He was such a well written character and he honestly surprised me. I genuinely thought he would be a typical alpha male, but he had his moments. Especially when he worshiped her when she got her period.
Your only responsibility is following my order and giving me access to your pussy.�
Overall: this book was so much fun. It gave me what I wanted. Their moments together were painfully erotic without them being physically together. Their chemistry was off the pages from day one. I’m so happy I got an Arc of this book. I would totally recommend this to anyone who is in the mood for something dark and kinky.
“So no, I’m not scared of you. I treasure you beyond words.�
January 12, 2025
"God, forgive me."
4 "unholy" stars
I ate and didn't stop🤰🏻
⤷Age gap
⤷Boarding School
⤷Student x Teacher/Priest
⤷Forbidden Tabboo
⤷Bratty FMC x Sadist MMC
⤷Delicious Slow Burn
⤷Virgin FMC
Loved the humor, the characters, the banter, the tension, theܳپDz😈 (LOL just kiddin')
“Whimper for me.�
YKW PUT THAT ON MY SHIRT 👚📝
"For the next hour, I showed her how a sadist made a woman beg.
I taught her my lessons in sin."
I'M SAT SIR WHEN WILL I GET MY DEGREE 🧘🏻♀️�
“I’m going to hell.�
“Not without me.�
ME AND WHO 🤡💍
THE ENDING>>>
“To invest in you.� 😮�
Bingo reading challenge ticked �48. An age-gap romance
_______________
Coach is directing my tbr atp
Also I fear I've already sinned by looking at this cover 🗿🙏🏻📿 what in the sigma face he's makin'
4 "
I ate and didn't stop🤰🏻
⤷Age gap
⤷Boarding School
⤷Student x Teacher/Priest
⤷Forbidden Tabboo
⤷Bratty FMC x Sadist MMC
⤷Delicious Slow Burn
⤷Virgin FMC
Loved the humor, the characters, the banter, the tension, the
“Whimper for me.�
YKW PUT THAT ON MY SHIRT 👚📝
"For the next hour, I showed her how a sadist made a woman beg.
I taught her my lessons in sin."
I'M SAT SIR WHEN WILL I GET MY DEGREE 🧘🏻♀️�
“I’m going to hell.�
“Not without me.�
ME AND WHO 🤡💍
THE ENDING>>>
“To invest in you.� 😮�
Bingo reading challenge ticked �48. An age-gap romance
_______________
Coach is directing my tbr atp
Also I fear I've already sinned by looking at this cover 🗿🙏🏻📿 what in the sigma face he's makin'
March 9, 2022
forgive me father for I have sinned 😮� I love me a good forbidden romance y’all, and this one really gave me what I needed. the age gap, the teacher/student, the spice, the catholic boarding school, the slowburn, the connection!!! it was all there! I loved Tinsley, she was hilarious and SPOKE HER MF MIND!!! a whole queen 💅🏻 and father magnus? pls. let’s just say i’d clean those floors for that man any day. the only thing I really didn’t vibe w was the humiliation scenes, but that’s just a personal thing.
also the way I got emotional over fcking opossums??? pls.
“sinners together. soulmates forever.�
“my choice. my love. my lessons in sin.�
also the way I got emotional over fcking opossums??? pls.
“sinners together. soulmates forever.�
“my choice. my love. my lessons in sin.�
June 16, 2021
'LESSONS IN SIN' Is a full length forbidden romance novel by Pam Godwin. Spoken in 'dual perspectives.' In this you'll meet Tinsley (18) & Magnus (41).
Forgive me father for I have sinned!! If priests looked like this in my town I'd be signing up even if I combusted walking through those doors!!
Wowza's this was all kinds of 🔥!!! First the cover hit, then the drooling occured, one read over the synopsis and loving this author there was no doubt in my mind that I would enjoy this one, as soon as I could get to it, game over, life over I was in feet and all, this hooked me from the very first chapter and didn't release me until that very last page was inhaled..A sinfully, kinky, sexy slow burn which combusted my kindle.
'Tinsley Constantine' One blow job and dodging any scandal changed the course of Tinsley's life, from riches to rags castrated to an all Catholic girls school 'Sion Academy' set in an New England village to transform her into a proper respectable young lady.
The 'Constantines' were royalty of high standing, Tinsley's mother already had a boy waiting in the wings to marry her daughter as soon as she finishes up her school year.
𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩'𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠,
𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟
𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐧𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬.
Tinsley is a rebel wanting to cut the ties that bind her, a lover of all creatures big and small and a mind that challenges and captures Magnus unawares. She had a way about her that got under his skin.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐞'𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐞.
𝐇𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫.
𝐒𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞.
𝐀 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐝.
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬𝐭.
𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬.
'Father Magnus Falke' Head of Sion Academy nine years ago traded in his troubled bachelor life where he was a king of the corporate world, a self made billionaire, leaving all that behind to devout his love to god and became a priest, he rules the girls under his care with an iron fist and will punish any who dare to step out of line.
This threw up so many forbidden flags but that just added to the sensual sexy thrill of this tantalizing age gap read, this author has such a knack of pulling me in with her story telling which keeps me coming back for more.
* Teaser used is off the authors facebook page *
January 16, 2022
edited 1/16/22: changing the rating to 2 stars from 3 because I’m 99.9% sure I meant to click 2 stars instead. My dumbass definitely wouldn’t have rated it 3 stars willingly 🙄
I didn't love this, but I also didn't hate this...
What I liked:
•Age gaps are the best (18h/40H)
•The smut was pretty well written
•The forbidden aspect of the teacher/student trope
What I didn't like:
•O첹 MAGNUS (H) IS NOT ACTUALLY A PRIEST IN MY EYES. There. I said it. He chose priesthood so he had a reason to stop being a piece of shit. He didn't really seem to worship God enough for me to be convinced that he's a priest
•There were some super cringey moments that reminded me that this is a grown woman trying to write a character that is in high school
NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS PLEASE
Let's not forget the 'Okay, boomer's and the heroine calling a 40-year old man 'miss girl'
•When Magnus was punishing Tinsley (h) and wouldn't allow her to use the bathroom so she pissed all over herself, I actually wanted to throw myself into a fire.
�WHY ARE ANAL SCENES IN BOOKS ALWAYS SO PAINFUL?! Like the hero always just shoves his dick into the heroine and it sounds like the most horrible shit ever
UHHH why did I actually clench while reading that shit
•Magnus is a king, Period.
note: please detect my sarcasm with that last bullet point
I didn't love this, but I also didn't hate this...
What I liked:
•Age gaps are the best (18h/40H)
•The smut was pretty well written
•The forbidden aspect of the teacher/student trope
What I didn't like:
•O첹 MAGNUS (H) IS NOT ACTUALLY A PRIEST IN MY EYES. There. I said it. He chose priesthood so he had a reason to stop being a piece of shit. He didn't really seem to worship God enough for me to be convinced that he's a priest
•There were some super cringey moments that reminded me that this is a grown woman trying to write a character that is in high school
"...Sounds like the moms of TikTok. Hashtag Old-Tok. Yawn."
NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS PLEASE
Let's not forget the 'Okay, boomer's and the heroine calling a 40-year old man 'miss girl'
•When Magnus was punishing Tinsley (h) and wouldn't allow her to use the bathroom so she pissed all over herself, I actually wanted to throw myself into a fire.
�WHY ARE ANAL SCENES IN BOOKS ALWAYS SO PAINFUL?! Like the hero always just shoves his dick into the heroine and it sounds like the most horrible shit ever
"I sank my teeth harder while slipping out of her pussy, removing my hand from her ass, and plunging inside her virgin hole on a smooth trust.
...
"Wrong hole! Wrong hole!" Short bursts of whimpers escaped her.
"You have no wrong holes."
UHHH why did I actually clench while reading that shit
•Magnus is a king, Period.
note: please detect my sarcasm with that last bullet point
May 17, 2021
Tabboo/Forbidden is the Swan song that calls to my twisted heart in a way no other trope can.
The dangerous thrill, sneaky stolen moments and the moral sins make a delicious broth, stirring in an emotional couldron, ready to froth over anytime.
"Forgive me Father, For I Have Sinned"
Add in a love story of a man searching for redemption and girl looking for escape from her oppressive family, and you have a multilayered story, the stuff dark dreams are made of.
"Being with him had been an ascension to heaven. Leaving him condemned me to eternal hell."
My heart just tingles in delicious shivers whenever I pick a book by Pam. Her kinky, naughty bravado pushes the envelope a wee bit more in every book. Squeamish turns to erotic, abrasive love soothes like a balm, such is the magic of out-of-the-box-thinker Godwin. All her stories are etched in brutal colors and this one has a pink hued halo to it.
Set in the world of Dangerous Romances, Constantine family's youngest princess Tinsley is a wayward rebel, packed off to cool her heels and attitudes in thick walls of Convent. Managed and governed under the iron fisted but oh-so-Delish Father Magnus Falke.
Tinsley is a modern day Lolita tempting the Devil in collar
"This was happening. Not because I’d planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn’t been called to be a priest. I’d been called to be hers."
Of course Pam throws the age gap (18:41).
Of course it's the ripe, juicy apple Adam wants.
Of course banishment is the inevitable outcome.
But, do they care- no!
Do WE care- also no!
"I’d broken my vows and taken the virginity of my student. The youngest daughter of the Constantines. My day of reckoning would come. Until then, I would take profuse, unholy pleasure in the sin."
Pam made me a voyeur to the shocking intimacy of Tinsley & Magnus and couple of scenes stretched the seams of my comfort bubble. I'll confess I did read them with one eye closed, but despite that, I was like, OMG what're they doing which soon turned to I wish it was me , I was tremendously turned on, my breaths became pants and my panties became mmmmmoist!
A battle between carnal desires of the flesh vs faith in his vocation, makes Magnus a perfectly lost man. His dilemmas are hard beads on his rosary and he clutches them tightly in his hand.
But I loved the character of Tinsley. Her heart remains surprisingly soft and tender despite the cold environment she has grown up in.
“They don’t judge. They don’t hate. If humans had hearts like opossums, what beautiful world this would be.� If people had hearts like Tinsley Constantine, my faith in humanity would be renewed."
Pam has packed enough heat to melt the thick stone walls of the school and around Magnus's soul.
Her prose is Part elegant, part explicitly erotic and the end result is steaming dish served unbearable hot. I burned my tongue on it in my haste to devour it...you will too
Come with me and lay down on the altar for a blessing that is Magnus
"He gave me the teacher and the priest, the sinner and the sadist, the greatest of lovers and the staunch protector."
Scorching hot Warning : Say your Hail Marys before reading it, cause you'll sin and love it!!
5 ultimate stars Tantalizing, kinky, forbidden, slow burn
Follow me on:
🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻
The dangerous thrill, sneaky stolen moments and the moral sins make a delicious broth, stirring in an emotional couldron, ready to froth over anytime.
"Forgive me Father, For I Have Sinned"
Add in a love story of a man searching for redemption and girl looking for escape from her oppressive family, and you have a multilayered story, the stuff dark dreams are made of.
"Being with him had been an ascension to heaven. Leaving him condemned me to eternal hell."
My heart just tingles in delicious shivers whenever I pick a book by Pam. Her kinky, naughty bravado pushes the envelope a wee bit more in every book. Squeamish turns to erotic, abrasive love soothes like a balm, such is the magic of out-of-the-box-thinker Godwin. All her stories are etched in brutal colors and this one has a pink hued halo to it.
Set in the world of Dangerous Romances, Constantine family's youngest princess Tinsley is a wayward rebel, packed off to cool her heels and attitudes in thick walls of Convent. Managed and governed under the iron fisted but oh-so-Delish Father Magnus Falke.
Tinsley is a modern day Lolita tempting the Devil in collar
"This was happening. Not because I’d planned it. But because it was destined. We were inevitable. I hadn’t been called to be a priest. I’d been called to be hers."
Of course Pam throws the age gap (18:41).
Of course it's the ripe, juicy apple Adam wants.
Of course banishment is the inevitable outcome.
But, do they care- no!
Do WE care- also no!
"I’d broken my vows and taken the virginity of my student. The youngest daughter of the Constantines. My day of reckoning would come. Until then, I would take profuse, unholy pleasure in the sin."
Pam made me a voyeur to the shocking intimacy of Tinsley & Magnus and couple of scenes stretched the seams of my comfort bubble. I'll confess I did read them with one eye closed, but despite that, I was like, OMG what're they doing which soon turned to I wish it was me , I was tremendously turned on, my breaths became pants and my panties became mmmmmoist!
A battle between carnal desires of the flesh vs faith in his vocation, makes Magnus a perfectly lost man. His dilemmas are hard beads on his rosary and he clutches them tightly in his hand.
But I loved the character of Tinsley. Her heart remains surprisingly soft and tender despite the cold environment she has grown up in.
“They don’t judge. They don’t hate. If humans had hearts like opossums, what beautiful world this would be.� If people had hearts like Tinsley Constantine, my faith in humanity would be renewed."
Pam has packed enough heat to melt the thick stone walls of the school and around Magnus's soul.
Her prose is Part elegant, part explicitly erotic and the end result is steaming dish served unbearable hot. I burned my tongue on it in my haste to devour it...you will too
Come with me and lay down on the altar for a blessing that is Magnus
"He gave me the teacher and the priest, the sinner and the sadist, the greatest of lovers and the staunch protector."
Scorching hot Warning : Say your Hail Marys before reading it, cause you'll sin and love it!!
5 ultimate stars Tantalizing, kinky, forbidden, slow burn
Follow me on:
🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻
February 21, 2022
4.5 stars
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this one, but I was definitely wary of our heroine. She's defiant and acts out on purpose and tries to see how far she can push those in her life. But I loved her. Her connection with Magnus was instant and I really felt the emotional and physical connection between them. This is definitely a forbidden and taboo romance because she's younger, he's a priest, and she's a student at his school. But I love the angst that comes with forbidden romances, so I really ended up loving this one. Magnus's character was so interesting to me and his reasonings for being a priest. I really enjoyed getting to know him and how he felt about his past. His character was so complex and made me understand why he was a priest to begin with. Tinsley and Magnus were a really great couple and I really liked how Tinsley wanted to understand Magnus and truly fell for him after she was only trying to seduce him to get out of being at the school. If you can handle the taboo nature, I highly recommend this one!
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this one, but I was definitely wary of our heroine. She's defiant and acts out on purpose and tries to see how far she can push those in her life. But I loved her. Her connection with Magnus was instant and I really felt the emotional and physical connection between them. This is definitely a forbidden and taboo romance because she's younger, he's a priest, and she's a student at his school. But I love the angst that comes with forbidden romances, so I really ended up loving this one. Magnus's character was so interesting to me and his reasonings for being a priest. I really enjoyed getting to know him and how he felt about his past. His character was so complex and made me understand why he was a priest to begin with. Tinsley and Magnus were a really great couple and I really liked how Tinsley wanted to understand Magnus and truly fell for him after she was only trying to seduce him to get out of being at the school. If you can handle the taboo nature, I highly recommend this one!
September 2, 2021
I feel like I’m always in the minority when I side with girls like Tinsley. Her arguments are sound, perhaps she’s acting bratty but that’s no doubt because more reasonable tacts hadn’t been successful. Plus she’s 18, other than being controlled by an inheritance it’s seems heavy handed to send her to a reform school at this point. Technically she’s an adult and she’s being threatened with corporal punishment?
Honestly the thought of corporal punishment by a hot priest should titillate me (and it does) but typically I like my bdsm with a side of consent. And even though I’m beginning to appreciate dub-con or non-con I can’t change the fact that this premise irks me. Mostly because I’m irritated with Caroline and I’m sure it stems from hypocrisy which pisses me off more than you can possibly imagine.
So, I started this last week, after 15% I put it off until the beginning of the month because I wanted to keep my favorite for the month of August. I knew this book would annihilate that one and shoot straight to the top of my favorites. And Tinsley and Magnus? Perhaps the top of my favorite h and H.
That dance was just � eye opening and � just wow. Definitely made Carrie look like child’s play. (Between you and me I thought we were gonna have another disturbing moment like in RAW by Seven Rue 🤢, on the other hand I can appreciate his respect on the matter.)
Holy shit! That might be the hottest oral scene I’ve ever read! Where the fuck do I find a priest ready to sin?!
I knew this would get emotional, it’s Pam Godwin, but it still didn’t prepare me for the all encompassing compassion I’d have for these characters with how much they need each other. They started out on the worst possible foot and in the end they were each other’s saving Grace.
Sierra Simone covered everything but the confessional so thank you Pam. 🥵🌶🙏 (I could be wrong about Priest, it’s been a minute but it sounded good.)
You know what the worst? When that tough as nails, takes no prisoners, grumpy af H who hates everyone but the h is hurt reprehensibly. Because you know you’ve finally knicked that tough as nails armor. It breaks my heart every time.
I should’ve saw that coming � how did I not see that coming?! Fucking genius and it makes total sense.
Honestly the thought of corporal punishment by a hot priest should titillate me (and it does) but typically I like my bdsm with a side of consent. And even though I’m beginning to appreciate dub-con or non-con I can’t change the fact that this premise irks me. Mostly because I’m irritated with Caroline and I’m sure it stems from hypocrisy which pisses me off more than you can possibly imagine.
So, I started this last week, after 15% I put it off until the beginning of the month because I wanted to keep my favorite for the month of August. I knew this book would annihilate that one and shoot straight to the top of my favorites. And Tinsley and Magnus? Perhaps the top of my favorite h and H.
That dance was just � eye opening and � just wow. Definitely made Carrie look like child’s play. (Between you and me I thought we were gonna have another disturbing moment like in RAW by Seven Rue 🤢, on the other hand I can appreciate his respect on the matter.)
Holy shit! That might be the hottest oral scene I’ve ever read! Where the fuck do I find a priest ready to sin?!
I knew this would get emotional, it’s Pam Godwin, but it still didn’t prepare me for the all encompassing compassion I’d have for these characters with how much they need each other. They started out on the worst possible foot and in the end they were each other’s saving Grace.
Sierra Simone covered everything but the confessional so thank you Pam. 🥵🌶🙏 (I could be wrong about Priest, it’s been a minute but it sounded good.)
You know what the worst? When that tough as nails, takes no prisoners, grumpy af H who hates everyone but the h is hurt reprehensibly. Because you know you’ve finally knicked that tough as nails armor. It breaks my heart every time.
I should’ve saw that coming � how did I not see that coming?! Fucking genius and it makes total sense.
November 20, 2022
Audiobook - 4 stars
Story - dnf rating upto 70% 2 stars
I am not buying it. 😩I can't believe this is the same author that wrote Dark Notes. Now that is taboo. This on the other hand is just a story with the label taboo. No dark or taboo detected. 😖😥
I was not convinced that Magnus is a Priest, remove the word Priest and you get a boring MC. Whoever decided to put him into priesthood should be arrested. 😁😁
I was rooting for Tinsley character but she was disappointing too. 😔 She did not read like an 18 year old girl. And is it taboo if the MCs are of legal age? 🤔 😒 If you going to do taboo. Please do taboo with your head held high, 😎consequences be damned. 🤓
Tinsley family?? Omg.. What in the soap opera was that.? 😐
This was a cop-out. Anyhoo.. It is what it is. My taboo read expectations were crushed.
Story - dnf rating upto 70% 2 stars
I am not buying it. 😩I can't believe this is the same author that wrote Dark Notes. Now that is taboo. This on the other hand is just a story with the label taboo. No dark or taboo detected. 😖😥
I was not convinced that Magnus is a Priest, remove the word Priest and you get a boring MC. Whoever decided to put him into priesthood should be arrested. 😁😁
I was rooting for Tinsley character but she was disappointing too. 😔 She did not read like an 18 year old girl. And is it taboo if the MCs are of legal age? 🤔 😒 If you going to do taboo. Please do taboo with your head held high, 😎consequences be damned. 🤓
Tinsley family?? Omg.. What in the soap opera was that.? 😐
This was a cop-out. Anyhoo.. It is what it is. My taboo read expectations were crushed.
June 30, 2021
DNF @ 2%. Typically I don't rate books when I've read less than 50%, but I'm feeling savage. I basically agree with all the low star reviews, and I can tell this isn't going to get better.
I want subtlety. Chemistry between characters that builds as I read more...this is so overt, literally within the first 1% and OTT ridiculous I couldn't stop rolling my eyes.
I want subtlety. Chemistry between characters that builds as I read more...this is so overt, literally within the first 1% and OTT ridiculous I couldn't stop rolling my eyes.
August 4, 2021
Forgive me father I have sinnnnnedddddd!!!! Lordddddd I have died and Magnus is my heaven... now I was hesitant on reading this not because of the priest kink.. I read few Pam books and they weren't my fave.. so I gave this one a try because alot of my friends said it was so good. And IT WASSS!!!
Now my heart and soul felt for Tinsley that poor girl was being used as a pawn in her mother's game of wealth.. and if you don't know her family well they are vicious.. and there mama is top. One mistake has Tinsley in the hands of Father Magnus his rules, his stone cold punishment.. and boy when they first meet it is tension as heck!! Tinsley she dishes out and doesn't back down from Magnus even when he punishes her daily with task like clean the floors, other task but he did Humiliated her with one task that we'll let's say girl couldn't hold it.. that man was cruel but not to cruel.. and thats where it all starts the sexual tension between the two.. one trying to not break his vow he other trying to push more to get expelled... but Tin feelings sorta change and she now having real feelings... but it's not easy for both of them since they are Teacher/student and he is a Preist.. but lord.. I swear when they do finally get down it is steamy as heck...
Low angst, tiny om/ow (thirsty chick's and arrange marriage both MC didn't care for those) no cheating, Drama, slight secondary character, sexy times, virgin gal and no manwhore celibate
Recommend-yes
DZ-⭐⭐⭐⭐
Heat level-🌶🌶🌶🌶
Slowburn
Push away from both more H
Age gap
18h/40H
Punishment
Humiliation
Masturbation
No condom
Anal play/sex
Seperation 6 months
Hea
Epilogue
Now my heart and soul felt for Tinsley that poor girl was being used as a pawn in her mother's game of wealth.. and if you don't know her family well they are vicious.. and there mama is top. One mistake has Tinsley in the hands of Father Magnus his rules, his stone cold punishment.. and boy when they first meet it is tension as heck!! Tinsley she dishes out and doesn't back down from Magnus even when he punishes her daily with task like clean the floors, other task but he did Humiliated her with one task that we'll let's say girl couldn't hold it.. that man was cruel but not to cruel.. and thats where it all starts the sexual tension between the two.. one trying to not break his vow he other trying to push more to get expelled... but Tin feelings sorta change and she now having real feelings... but it's not easy for both of them since they are Teacher/student and he is a Preist.. but lord.. I swear when they do finally get down it is steamy as heck...
Low angst, tiny om/ow (thirsty chick's and arrange marriage both MC didn't care for those) no cheating, Drama, slight secondary character, sexy times, virgin gal and no manwhore celibate
Recommend-yes
DZ-⭐⭐⭐⭐
Heat level-🌶🌶🌶🌶
Slowburn
Push away from both more H
Age gap
18h/40H
Punishment
Humiliation
Masturbation
No condom
Anal play/sex
Seperation 6 months
Hea
Epilogue
December 27, 2021
Reread for my 2021 Favorites
.
*Thank you to the author and her publicity for the free copy in exchange for a review.*
In an interest of keeping this review concise and to the point, and to prevent Amazon from censoring what I have to say, I will try to keep this brief.
Also, having now read every book Pam Godwin has written during a deep dive in the last 3 months, I can say with certainty that only Sea of Ruin holds a candle to what I feel for this book. It was challenging of social norms, stretching in what I believe, and devastating in its love story.
This was raw, real, brave, and hopeful. Tinsley and Magnus were not what I was expecting from this taboo tale about a student and her Priestly Headmaster. I was in for a seductive time of hidden glances and forbidden touches, but I was not prepared for the gut-wrenching LOVE I felt between these two.
I should have known better by now. If Pam Godwin was going to take on this tale, it wasn't going to be just for a thrill.
There is something to be said for writing two characters with completely opposite motivations and seeing where that can lead you to. Tinsley wants out of this prison of a Girl's Boarding School, and Magnus wants her to fall under his rule and conform to how he runs things. But neither of them is prepared for the sheer magnetism of the other, or they way their souls will slowly begin to align.
I also don't need to get into the steam of this book, its a Pam Godwin, it's there. And as always, she can bring me near to tears with how beautifully she shows these to fighting their attraction and then giving in and realizing this is where they are meant to be.
I know some people will want to steer clear of this due to the sacrilegious elements and a feeling of wrongness about it. I guess I can understand that, but I would say, this book didn't have the same vibe as other Priest romances I have read, and though there are some elements that had me crossing myself, this book really is about so much more. So I encourage you to give it a try if you are intrigued.
Finally, I want to say that surprisingly, to me, who has read all of Pam Godwin's work, this was the least DARK of them all. No, seriously. It is taboo. 100% just by the nature of the setting and the main characters, but there are none of the other Trigger Warnings that liter Pam's other works. So, no one was more surprised than me. No terrible past traumas, some hang-ups for sure, but nothing on a Deliver Scale at all.
In fact, the only TW I could come up with is possible harm to animals. (No death on screen but it is referenced.) And.... that is it.. I can't really name anything else. Maybe some serious second-hand embarrassment in a few places.
So yeah, I think you should read this book. I loved it, its a favorite of the year and I already want to reread it.
6/5 stars
.
*Thank you to the author and her publicity for the free copy in exchange for a review.*
In an interest of keeping this review concise and to the point, and to prevent Amazon from censoring what I have to say, I will try to keep this brief.
Also, having now read every book Pam Godwin has written during a deep dive in the last 3 months, I can say with certainty that only Sea of Ruin holds a candle to what I feel for this book. It was challenging of social norms, stretching in what I believe, and devastating in its love story.
This was raw, real, brave, and hopeful. Tinsley and Magnus were not what I was expecting from this taboo tale about a student and her Priestly Headmaster. I was in for a seductive time of hidden glances and forbidden touches, but I was not prepared for the gut-wrenching LOVE I felt between these two.
I should have known better by now. If Pam Godwin was going to take on this tale, it wasn't going to be just for a thrill.
There is something to be said for writing two characters with completely opposite motivations and seeing where that can lead you to. Tinsley wants out of this prison of a Girl's Boarding School, and Magnus wants her to fall under his rule and conform to how he runs things. But neither of them is prepared for the sheer magnetism of the other, or they way their souls will slowly begin to align.
I also don't need to get into the steam of this book, its a Pam Godwin, it's there. And as always, she can bring me near to tears with how beautifully she shows these to fighting their attraction and then giving in and realizing this is where they are meant to be.
I know some people will want to steer clear of this due to the sacrilegious elements and a feeling of wrongness about it. I guess I can understand that, but I would say, this book didn't have the same vibe as other Priest romances I have read, and though there are some elements that had me crossing myself, this book really is about so much more. So I encourage you to give it a try if you are intrigued.
Finally, I want to say that surprisingly, to me, who has read all of Pam Godwin's work, this was the least DARK of them all. No, seriously. It is taboo. 100% just by the nature of the setting and the main characters, but there are none of the other Trigger Warnings that liter Pam's other works. So, no one was more surprised than me. No terrible past traumas, some hang-ups for sure, but nothing on a Deliver Scale at all.
In fact, the only TW I could come up with is possible harm to animals. (No death on screen but it is referenced.) And.... that is it.. I can't really name anything else. Maybe some serious second-hand embarrassment in a few places.
So yeah, I think you should read this book. I loved it, its a favorite of the year and I already want to reread it.
6/5 stars
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