Review: The Virgin (The Original Sinners: White Years #3) by Tiffany Reisz

Print Length: 400 pages

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA (March 31, 2015)

From Goodreads.com: The controversial story before the story continues in the critically acclaimed and award-winning series The Original Sinners.

For years, Kingsley Edge warned Eleanor the day would come when she, the mistress of a well-respected Catholic priest, would have to run and hide. She always imagined if that day came she'd be running away with Søren. But instead, she's running from him.

Knowing Søren and Kingsley will their use their influence to bring her back, Eleanor alone, penniless and scared takes refuge at the one place the men in her life cannot follow: the abbey where her mother has taken orders. Behind the cloistered gates of the convent, Eleanor hides from the man she loves and hates in equal measure

She cannot, however, hide from her true nature. When Eleanor befriends a young virginal nun, she faces a startling sexual awakening. But Eleanor can't stay forever, and the lure of her real life beckons beyond the locked gates. But to follow her fate means to leave Kyrie behind, a sacrifice Eleanor refuses to make

The lure of the forbidden. The temptation to sin. The price of passion has never been higher, and Eleanor will have to pay it if she ever wants to go home again. 

                                                  *******************

WARNING: This book is recommended for mature audiences ONLY due to language and explicit sexual content.

My Rating: 5 stars out of 5

My Review:  Once again, Tiffany Reisz manages to combine steamy hot sex scenes with a deeper core of uncertainty, character growth, and drama (of the best kind). 

This story was probably one of the more in depth of the series (and that is saying a lot considering how well developed all of her stories are). This time we get to focus primarily on Nora and Kingsley - or more specifically what happened to the pair of them during the time the spent away that shaped them into the people they are now. We all knew the basic details of what had happened from previous novels, so to see it "as it happened" so to speak, spoke volumes about the characters and how they ended up at the position in their lives they are in now. 

We get to see Nora not only embrace her "top" personality and her realization that she is in fact a switch like Kingsley, but we also get to see her embrace that side of her that is a writer, and see how the details of her first story came about. On the flip-side of that, we get to see Kingsley experience a mourning period that we didn't know existed before. Then we get to meet Juliette - and see just how hard he had to fight to make her his. 

In all of this, there are moments that make you laugh, and moments that are so heart-breaking that you shed a tear. These characters are more than just words on a page - they are real people trying to survive. They are friends who have been through hell and back. They may even be people you may even know in real life, but would never know their true selves just by looking at them. 

As always, I would highly recommend this novel (as I would her other novels) to anyone who not only enjoys a good erotica novel, but someone who enjoys a well written and well developed novel period. The hell with Fifty Shades of Gray, and the Hardwired series. You want good BDSM - you WANT Tiffany Reisz. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own. 

********************

The Virgin is available from Amazon.com