The Merchant and the Clergyman

By: Bonnie Dee, Summer Devon

Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

A village clergyman.

Curate James Fletcher is content shepherding his parishioners through the good and bad times of their lives. If he sometimes dreams of making a deeper connection with a man who truly knows everything about him, it is an impulse he ignores.

A devoted businessman.

Declan Shaw solves problems at his family's many business enterprises. Recently, he's considered ceasing his travels to pursue a few desires of his own. He'd love to explore his secret love of cooking and perhaps have a relationship with a man that lasts longer than a night.

The event that brings them together.

In town for his cousin's wedding, Declan meets James just as he's bested the annoying groom. Intrigued by the mild-mannered cleric's surprising spirit, Declan asks James to help him discover if his aging aunt is being mistreated by her spouse.

As their paths repeatedly cross, the men reach an intersection of attraction they can't ignore. Will they dare pursue forbidden passion and continue to journey together into the future, or will their differences tear them apart?

©2015 Bonnie Dee & Summer Devon (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Very nice.

Very nice narration , story, very linkable characters
I wish it had a bit of darkness, but this was a very nice love story.

Simple story

Loved the story. Set in a small village, Love story between a business man and a man of the clothe. Simple and fun.
Narrator new to me was amazing.

Unmet potential

This story has potential to be interesting because of the plot & characters aside from the romance. Unfortunately the romance itself was predictable and boring.

The narration is pretty good. It's rare that an American narrator can get so close to getting British accents right.

If this were my first book from these authors there wouldn't be a second.

what a bore

Give this a skip. Nothing about it measures up to the usual charm, creativity, and steam you'd expect from Bonnie Dee or Summer Devon.

The summary made me think the characters would be complex, but they're totally flat like cardboard cutouts. For Christ's sake, the merchant going off about wanting to be a chef is written with all the believability of a middle schooler's first fanfiction. Nightmare! The plot, if you can call it that, lacks even an ounce of intrigue. You can tell where it's going from the literal minute the "mystery" is set up. Since it's merely a framing device for a romance, I'd let that go if it weren't for the fact that the romance itself is the worst part of the book. Boring and uncreative. I rolled my eyes throughout.

I can't even remember the leads' names, Christ. The merchant fellow looks like his cousin, who used and abused the clergyman character. So I was extremely grossed out when the clergyman feels instant attraction to the merchant for resembling his abuser. He thinks it constantly. Not a great tone to begin a relationship with.

The story inserts light BDSM, which is handled wrongly from the start. As I said, the clergyman was used and abused. We briefly glimpse the start of an assault at the hands of his abuser (the merchant's cousin). The abuser starts grabbing at the clergyman's neck, despite his protests, and the clergyman knees him in the nads. The merchant somehow assumes from this scene that the clergyman likes to be dominated and controlled, and he fantasizes about doing the same later. I... What? I hadn't even realized this book would be have BDSM themes yet, and here we have the love interest fantasizing about it after that? We've only just seen the lead assaulted! And we're meant to find this merchant's fantasies, what, appealing? Logical? Remotely congruent with what happened? What were Dee and Devon thinking?

Meanwhile, the clergyman is sickened by his abuser's behavior, but finds himself oddly struggling to resist his abuser for a moment. This is a real world issue with abuse, so I wasn't shocked at first, but once it was tied up with kink, the abuser-lookalike merchant, and shallow storytelling, I felt sickened by the early scenes. The decision on the part of the writers to frame abuse as kink really disgusted me. I clung on for so long assuming that it would be addressed and the complicated feelings explored. Nope. Remember, these characters are cardboard cutouts. Nothing of depth is explored. This gives any attempt at a steamy scene an unsettling undertone, which is completely mismatched with the rest of the book's corny, light tone. So odd.

Despite how annoying so much of the book is, I couldn't even maintain interest in complaining about it. Ultimately, it's just too BORING! Predictable to a degree that bores even the most seasoned reader of formulaic romance novels such as myself.

Narration is fine, didn't think much about it, which is a good sign.