An Unholy Affair

Evie Alexander has a way of creating a fantastic premise for a story. The build up is delicate and the subtleties are such that the scene is set with such detail you don’t understand the amount of information you know until later.

I resonated with Eveline in that her relationship with her family is complicated. She tries to do right by others and is always putting everyone ahead of herself. Self care is not a top priority for her and I think that hits hard with a lot of us. Jack’s journey was filled with turmoil and sadness. It hurt my soul to see how the events of our past can still have such a strong effect on our futures. His pain was tangible and you couldn’t help but want to see him get help and stop beating himself up.

The two coming together and the development of their relationship had me squealing with excitement. The bathroom/bed scene was everything. It’s like can this happen in real life???

I love Evie’s descriptions like for example: “even the most lurid imaginings didn’t touch the technicolor brilliance of her reality.” That’s one of the best descriptions ever and no one can convince me otherwise. This story was sweet, it was spicy and ultimately it was an excellent read as it usually is with Evie’s work. I received an advanced copy from book Sirens and absolutely loved it. I sign up for these ARCs because I al impatient and want first go at all the great writing. If you haven’t read An Unholy Affair you are missing out because it was so brillant I wanted to burst. All the feels and more!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Evie Alexander has done it again, this is An Unholy Affair #2, in the Foxbrooke series. I loved the premise of this second chance, opposites attract story, put a Vicar and an Escort together, and bet you didn’t think
you’d get a beautiful love story, but you do. The first time Eveline met Jack it was mistaken identity on Jack’s part, but neither of them forgot about each other.

When Jack’s abusive father suddenly passes, he has to go back to Somerset, a place where his parents live, Jack just wants to get through this as the only good reason to go back was to see all his friends.

Eveline is the Vicar in Somerset, she enjoys her quiet life, serving others, looking after her garden and her pigs, but what she really wants is her own happily every after, someone to share her life and her love of her small town. Jack quickly finds out that Eveline is the vicar that is overseeing his fathers funeral. He is so happy to have an excuse to interact with Eveline, their attraction to each other is still there, but their lives are so very different. How do they make it work? Jack feels that he’d never be good enough for her, and Eveline feels the opposite, he is just what she needs. The way they figure it out is a treat to read. I highly recommend this book & this series, the Author always grabs your attention right away, keeps the pages turning,
adding in romance, a few funny twists, and a beautiful HEA.

I admit I was a bit hesitant going into this book given the heavy inclusion of religion (the FMC is a vicar in a small community) but having read the previous book in the series, as well as the Kinloch series, I also had confidence that it would be handled well.

And it was.

While the FMC, Eveline, is a vicar and definitely talks about her faith, the importance of religion in her life, etc., it is not done in an overbearing way. She never forces her religion on others and meets them where they are with respect to their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

Putting religion aside... this book is another hilarious adventure from Evie. I really would love to know how she comes up with her book ideas because the stories constantly surprise me.

In An Unholy Affair, the vicar meets and then starts a romantic relationship with a sex worker, Jack (the MMC), who has returned to his home village following the death of his father. A bit surprising, but it is handled in such a beautiful way with Eveline holding no ill judgment towards Jack and seeing sex work for what it is: a job. And in Jack's case, a job that he entered willingly. It is Jack who actually has some things to work through as he hid his job from his family and friends, but over the book, he starts to share this information. This representation of sex work in a fiction book is one of the best I have read.

Jack also sees Eveline for who she is, as a human, and shows her that she deserves to be appreciated, respected, nurtured, and taken care of. All things that many of her parishioners don't seem willing/able to do while easily accepting Eveline's help around the community.

I love how we get to check in with characters we met in the first Foxbrooke book, and that Unholy sets up future books for characters. I'm excited to see what antics they get up to!

Readers should be aware of references to abuse (off-page, in the past) as well as alcoholism and attempted assault.

Thanks to the author for an eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.